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Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Publicis Groupe Third Quarter 2026 Revenue Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of the Publicis Groupe. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sherry. [Foreign Language] and welcome to Publicis Groupe Third Quarter 2026 Revenue Call. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I am in Paris with our CFO, Loris Nold. Jean-Michel Bonamy is also with us and will be available to answer your questions offline after this call.

I will start with the 3 highlights of this quarter and explain why we are confident for the rest of 2026, but also 2027. Loris will then take you through our numbers before we take your questions together.

But first, please take the time to read this disclaimer, which is an important legal matter. Let's start with our performance. In Q3, we delivered plus 5% organic growth, accelerating from the first half despite a higher comparable. We are bringing our 9-month performance to plus 4.8%. These results are fully in line with the upgraded guidance we gave you in July. We are, therefore, confirming all of our objectives for 2026. Organic growth between 4.5% and 5%, with another strong Q4 within this range, a slight improvement of our record 2025 operating margin rate of 18.2% and free cash flow of circa EUR 2.2 billion.

Three highlights stand out this quarter. First, we continue to accelerate our market share gain and widen growth gap with our competitors. Second, our new business momentum is only getting stronger in a reshaped competitive landscape, giving us already strong visibility into 2027. And third, thanks to AI, our investments in data and technology are setting us apart, expanding our growth opportunities and improving our productivity and capacity to invest.

Let me take you through the details of those highlights. First, our market share gains acceleration. Connected Media, representing 62% of our net revenue, delivered high single-digit organic growth driven by market share gains, increased demand for AI-powered products and services and new addressable markets. Intelligent Creativity, representing 25% of net revenue, had a solid quarter at low single-digit organic growth, fueled by new business wins and scope expansions. At the same time, Technology improved sequentially.

While the situation in the Middle East kept global organic growth slightly negative, the U.S., our largest country, returned to positive growth in Q3. We expect this positive momentum to accelerate in Q4 with the entire business returning to positive performance. To understand these dynamics, it is important to recognize that AI adoption is moving at 2 different speeds.

In marketing services, consumers are using AI daily and are already changing how they search, discover brands and decide what to buy. As they turn to AI assistants for recommendations and comparisons, our clients need to adapt how they reach and engage with them. The imperative to adapt is immediate. Clients are ready to commit budgets faster because moving too slowly could mean losing market share.

Enterprise transformation follows a longer cycle. It requires changes to core systems, processes and ways of working, where adoption is progressing more slowly. With implementation taking longer and macroeconomic uncertainty remaining high, clients are more cautious about committing significant capital expenditures, as expressed by all IT consulting firms, including the market leader again recently. This creates 2 distinct investment dynamics: urgency to spend on marketing to protect and grow revenue and more measured commitments to enterprise transformation.

Sapient is essential to the growth of both pillars. Today, its contribution is strongest in marketing services, making its performance increasingly inseparable from the growth of our media and creative operations. Our geographic performance also demonstrates the consistency and resilience of our country model. The U.S., representing close to 60% of net revenue, grew plus 4.5% in Q3 against a demanding comparable of plus 7.1% last year, sustaining a strong 4.9% growth year-to-date. This performance was driven by Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity, both up mid-single digits, supported by major client wins.

Europe delivered plus 4.7%, accelerating versus H1 and leading to plus 4.5% year-to-date, with strong Connected Media results and continued market share gains. Asia Pac accelerated to plus 5.4% in Q3 from 4.1% in H1 with a 4.6% growth year-to-date. China, but also India, remained key contributors, both up double digits.

As a result, this quarter, we are further widening the gap with our peers on net organic growth. We are growing more than 3x faster than our peers on average in Q3 2026 on a multiyear stack, while we were growing just above 2.5x higher last year. That sustained outperformance for 25 consecutive quarters demonstrates the strength of our model, its ability to deliver through different market conditions across capabilities and geographies.

Our second highlight is new business, where our very strong performance in a newly consolidating landscape is giving us greater visibility into 2027. Omnicom's acquisition of IPG has reduced the competitive field by 25%, fundamentally reshaping our industry and opening up 2 major opportunities for Publicis. Actually, the first benefit to all of the 3 global players. The consolidated competitive landscape gives Publicis and its 2 major competitors a greater chance of winning. We are already seeing this reflected in our respective new business momentum.

As the latest COMvergence data shows, more than 90% of the holdco wins in H1 2026 landed with one of those 3 global players. They represented less than 75% of the wins a year ago. It is even more important to note that this reduced competitive landscape creates more room to compete on capabilities and business outcomes rather than on price alone. That means better conditions for profitable growth and value creation across the industry.

The second opportunity, however, is highly specific to Publicis. While our competitors are reducing headcount and scaling back investments, we are pursuing a polar opposite strategy. We are strengthening our teams, doubling down on data and technology and extending our identity-first model.

Our intention to acquire LiveRamp is the latest step, building on our investment in Sapient and Epsilon and the position we have established in commerce, influencers and sports. Clients increasingly value this difference. As they transform for the AI era, they want partners with the talent, technology and financial strength to invest alongside them.

This continued investment in talent and capabilities are the #1 reason why we have a retention rate close to 100% and the best new business track record. This is particularly visible in our Q3 new business performance, where JPMorgan looks at net new business, which is wins minus the losses.

Looking year-to-date, we have been on a record run when it comes to net new business, and our performance so far will contribute approximately to 200 basis points to organic growth in 2027. And with a dynamic pitch environment and several months still ahead, we have further opportunities to build on that contribution. These are assignments already won with revenues still to come. They give us a solid foundation for another year of industry outperformance.

Our third highlight is the way AI is amplifying the value of our investments in data and technology, already setting us apart. Four years after the rise of GenAI, its contribution to our growth, differentiation and operating performance is clear. Since 2022, we have increased our net revenue by close to 20%, which is more than 4x that of our peers on average. At the same time, we are widening our margin gap from 270 basis points in 2022 to close to 400 basis points in 2025.

Looking ahead, AI strengthens our model in 2 major ways. It connects our capabilities, strengthening our Category of One, and it improves our productivity, sustaining our capacity to invest. First, it connects our capabilities into an offering that clients increasingly need and that we can uniquely deliver. Clients are looking for a partner that can transform how they operate and how they grow. They want an AI-powered marketing engine built inside their own environment with control over their data and technology, an engine that they can plug, play, own and control. That is what Publicis delivers for our clients end-to-end in a unique way.

Sapient modernizes their technology and builds the data architecture for AI to operate at enterprise scale. Epsilon enables them to identify and engage each customer and prospect. Marcel provides the intelligence and orchestration connecting data, technology, agents and workflows. And our media, creative production and commerce operations activate this engine across every touch point against measurable business outcomes.

It means clients can know their customer individually, personalize interactions, produce content faster and optimize media in real time, all safely and transparently within their own environment. This is why we are able to increase our addressable market and expand and deepen our client relationship. That is reflected in our new business leadership for the seventh year in a row and our ability to win 3 material AI-led transformation assignments this year outside of traditional pitch processes.

Beyond this commercial momentum, our connected AI-powered capabilities enable to drive measurable business outcome for our clients. Using our data and advanced analytics and predictive modeling, we have been able to significantly improve commercial effectiveness and marketing efficiency. Second, AI improves productivity, contributes to margin improvement and generates additional capacity to invest.

We have focused our efforts on 2 priorities: making our talent AI fluent, equipping and training more than 90% of our 114,000 employees with AI productivity tools, more recently, thanks to our partnership with Microsoft. Deploying agents to automate manual and repetitive tasks, we have an objective of reducing them by an estimated 25% to deliver efficiencies and allow our people to focus on higher-value work.

These efforts have had a visible impact on our financial KPIs as reflected in the improvement of our personnel cost as a percentage of net revenue in H1 and in our increasing revenue per head on our ability to drive further margin improvement while reinvesting more each year in technology, talent and capabilities that will drive future growth. AI, therefore, creates more operating leverage that allows us to invest in talent, do more for clients and deliver EPS growth for our shareholders.

Now let me hand over to Loris to take you through the details of our numbers.

Thank you, Arthur, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin with the key highlights of our Q3 2026 revenue. Revenue reached EUR 4.614 billion, up 6.9% on an organic basis. Net revenue was EUR 3.808 billion. Organic growth was plus 5%, coming on top of plus 5.7% in Q3 2025. There was a net positive impact of currency of 150 basis points due to the appreciation of the USD and some Asian currencies versus the euro. And acquisitions, net of disposals, contributed a positive 140 basis points, reflecting the impact of our 2025 and 2026 acquisitions, namely OneSixtyOverNinety, P-Value, HEPMIL and Fabric. When factoring in those items, net revenue was up 7.9% on a reported basis.

Let's move to the next slide and our Q3 net revenue by region. North America was up 4.4% on an organic basis. This comes on top of a very high comparable of plus 7.1% in Q3 2025. Organic growth for the first 9 months was in line with the group's total at plus 4.8%. There was a positive impact of the USD versus euro on top of the contribution from acquisitions, and reported revenue was up 7.6% in Q3. Europe delivered plus 4.7% in organic growth. And it is worth noting that when excluding the impact of technology, organic growth was up 7.7%. There was a positive impact of the pound sterling versus the euro, leading to a reported growth of plus 5.3% for the region.

Asia Pacific posted plus 5.4% organic growth. There too, there was a net positive impact of currency appreciation versus the euro on top of the contribution from acquisitions, leading to a reported growth of plus 10.1% in Q3. Latin America continued to perform very strongly and was up 23.8% in organic growth. When adding the positive contribution of currencies and acquisitions, reported growth was plus 31.4%.

And finally, Middle East and Africa was down minus 1.4%, as it continues to be impacted by the conflict. Reported net revenue was up 5.0%, thanks to the positive impact of currency changes.

Let's get into more details for each region, starting with North America. The U.S., the group's largest geography, representing 59% of our net revenues, posted organic growth of plus 4.5% after plus 7.1% for the same period last year. This brings the year-to-date performance slightly ahead of total group at plus 4.9%. Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity were both up mid-single digits in Q3, benefiting from new business wins and scope expansions. And Technology turned positive, growing low single digits this quarter.

Let's turn to the performance in Europe on the next slide. The region posted plus 4.7% organic growth, and when excluding technology, grew at a very strong plus 7.7%. The U.K., which represents 9% of our net revenue, was broadly flat on an organic basis in Q3 due to the conflict in the Middle East, which continues to impact Publicis Sapient U.K. hub. When excluding Technology, organic growth was plus 7.1%, driven by very strong growth in Connected Media. France, which represents 5% of our net revenue, was up 4.5%, with Connected Media and Technology performing well. Lastly, our operations in Germany and in Central and Eastern Europe were up 7.7% and 7.2%, respectively, driven by strong growth in Connected Media.

Turning to the next slide for our performance in the Rest of the World. Asia Pacific, which represents 9% of our net revenues, was up 5.4% organically. China continued to be very strong at plus 10.6% organic growth in Q3. India was also up double digits. Southeast Asia continued to be softer, still bearing the impact of the Middle East conflict. Latin America posted plus 23.8% organic growth in Q3, driven by Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity, in particular, in Brazil and Mexico. As mentioned earlier, Middle East and Africa posted a minus 1.4% organic decline in Q3.

For your reference, you will find on the next slide our performance year-to-date by region. As you can see, all of our regions posted a strong organic performance, leading to plus 4.8% in total for the group year-to-date after plus 5.5% for the same period last year. Last, net revenue was up 3.3% over the period and on a reported basis.

Moving to my last slide, net financial debt. The average net debt over the last 12 months was EUR 1.196 billion, in line with our expectations. This represents an increase of EUR 239 million compared to last year due to the acquisitions completed as well as the impact of the lower USD versus the euro in the last 12 months. We closed Q3 2026 with a net debt of EUR 1.598 billion.

This concludes my financial presentation, and I now give the floor back to you, Arthur.

Thank you, Loris. Just to wrap up before we take your questions. As you have seen in Q3, our model continues to deliver market share gains and increase the growth gap with our peers. In a competitive landscape that has been totally reshaped, our new business wins already provide strong visibility into 2027. And last but not least, AI is only expanding both our growth potential and our capacity to invest. With 5% organic growth in Q3, we are confirming all our objectives for 2026 and are in position to deliver another strong year of outperformance in 2027. We just completed our 25th quarter of outperformance. And with our unique ability to connect data, technology and talent through the Power of One, we are confident to continue on the same dynamic for the years to come.

Well, let me thank our clients for their trust and our people for their outstanding work. Thank you for listening. And now with Loris, we are happy to take all of your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Nicolas Langlet of BNP Paribas.

So I've got 2 topics I would like to discuss, please. First, on the top client spending since July, has any of your top clients has cut or deferred its Q4 budget relative to plan? And as your top clients set their '27 budget? Is the tone better or worse than at this point last year?

And secondly, on Sapient, so great to see you expect a return to growth in Q4, what is driving the expected improvement in Q4 relative to Q3? Is it delayed projects restarting or more new AI-led transformation work? And based on today's pipeline, should we expect Sapient to be positive in '27?

Nicolas, I'm going to start with the client sentiment. I'll give you an overall feedback, and then Loris, if you want to add something. But basically -- and this is why I tried to explain in the first part is that on the one hand, clients continue to invest in AI-powered marketing products and services because they know that this is the way to gain and retain market share. And as I said in my presentation, the AI adoption by consumer is so high that you don't have time to lose. And what is great here is that we see our clients just investing more in transforming the marketing model. This is why we are growing so fast with Connected Media. But by the way, and I'll come back to that, this is also why we are growing with Sapient.

On the other hand, I think we need to be clear that they are still slower in investing in large discretionary projects. This is due to macro uncertainty, and this is what you have heard from any IT consulting firms, including the market leader. But if I may come back to us here, this is an advantage for us because -- don't get me wrong, Sapient is very important for us, and I'll come back in a second. But Technology is 13% of our revenue. We roughly have 19% of our revenue that is in marketing transformation. And actually, we have the right revenue mix to help our clients today and prepare tomorrow.

You want to add something on the client? What I can tell you is that the tone is not better or worse. The tone is committed to transformation because they know they have to do it, but still in a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to CapEx spend, but definitely accelerating when it comes to OpEx and gaining market share on the consumer that has changed his behavior.

But the only thing that I would add, Nicolas, is remember when we upgraded our guidance in H1, we did it for 2 reasons, one is because of the strong new business wins we had in the first part of the year. And the second is because of the confidence that we had in our existing client base where we lose very little business, as you know. And so that gave us a lot of visibility, and that visibility and that confidence has not changed into H2.

Let me spend a moment on Sapient because it's definitely a news in our results. I would basically say 3 things. First, just to recap, we have seen a sequential improvement in Q3 versus Q2, and it's basically thanks to the U.S. that are turning positive. And as we said, we expect these dynamics, I'm starting to answer your question, to accelerate for the entire business and to be back to positive overall on technology in the fourth quarter, which I think is good and reassuring news.

Now, as I said, and I have to insist on that, is that like all of the industry experts and peers today, we believe it's too early to see or to expect an inflection on what we call large enterprise AI transformation. So we still have to be cautious on this part. But third and maybe more importantly, I'm happy to come back on that later, and I think it will deserve more time than a call to do that. But what sets us apart is that this kind of renewed momentum that you see in Sapient today is mainly coming from our ability to boost our marketing transformation capabilities.

And every day, more Sapient is working hand-in-hand with our media and creative operations. And together, they have positioned us to capture what is an increasing demand from clients, as I said, who urgently need to adapt in AI when it comes to talking to consumers. And this is why, and we are trying to do our job as best as we can here, but this is why it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate Sapient revenue from our media and creative operations.

Actually, Sapient should not only be viewed as a reporting line, which it is, of course, but also as a key AI platform that transforms the outperformance of the entire group. I mean, if I give you just 2 quick examples to make that very concrete to you, thanks to our enterprise-grade agent platform, Sapient is actually allowing us to act not as a simple creative or media agency, but as a true transformation partner for our clients in the age of AI.

And to put it simply, and we don't like to talk too much about new business, but Sapient has been instrumental in winning the 2 biggest accounts of the year without a pitch. A second example, and I know it has been a big topic for you guys recently, is in production. As you know, this represents roughly EUR 1 billion of revenue in net revenue for us. And Sapient delivers for us a real competitive advantage. This is why we are growing so fast in production because at the end of the day, we have great studios, and we had great studios for years. But the big question now is the tech platform that really allows you to connect the data with the production to deliver Intelligent Creativity. So all in all, Sapient is improving as a reporting line, and that's great news. But even more importantly, it is really contributing to our overall growth.

I knew you would have the question for '27. I would say as for everything, by the way, it's too early to tell you more about '27, particularly in the macro context we are in today. But there is one thing that I can tell you is that we expect Sapient to continue benefiting from an increasing demand for AI transformation projects, including from clients on the media and the creative front. So yes, we are confident and optimistic for what is coming.

Sorry, Nicolas, I've been a bit long, but hopefully, I have covered most of the Sapient question through your question.

Very clear. Yes, very clear.

The next question is from Jérôme Bodin of ODDO.

So just a few questions. Just first of all, to follow up on Sapient in the U.S., so 2 questions. Is it mostly back-end loaded in Q3? Or is it balanced all over the quarter? So have you seen an improvement mostly in September? That's the first question.

Second one is what type of contract is it exactly? Is it more short-term one-shot? Or is it more long-term contracts that should help the business for the next 1 to 2 or 3 years? That's my first question.

Second one on the net new business for next year, so for 2027. So at Q2, you said 100 basis points for 2027. Now, you're saying 200, but you had PepsiCo, you had Kering, which are quite big. So just to try to understand, have you included -- I know you don't want to be specific on advertisers, but have you included the loss of the possible loss of Coca-Cola? And if that's the case, will it be mostly 2027 or Q4?

And lastly, on agents. So we -- so platforms like OpenAI are now developing their own advertising agents. So just to understand, why do you want Publicis to be in that model? I know it's a bit early stage because it's linked to LiveRamp, but do you want to build and run your own agent? Or do you also want to provide data to these external agents like OpenAI or Claude?

I can actually start with the third question and then I'll come back on the rest, is our moat, as the consultants are saying, comes basically from 2 things today, the quality of our data and our people. These are things that will not be disrupted by AI. So to come back to your question, we will definitely connect our data with any new platform that will exist in the environment. And by the way, the more platforms, the more complexity, the better for us because at the end of the day, and you know that, AI is nothing without the data.

And by the way, the more complex is the marketing model, the more our clients will need the service that goes with that. So we feel confident that we're going to be able to be agnostic when it comes to platforms. And by the way, making sure that we build models that are living in our client environment that they can own and control.

On Sapient, I would say it has been pretty balanced over the quarter. It's long-term contracts we are talking about. And again, let me insist on that. If I give you a concrete example, which I tried to do a bit earlier on, when you go to a client and you explain to him that he has to put identity at the core of this model, that he has to connect this identity with the full marketing ecosystem and through that he is going to be able to fuel it with intelligent content and measure in terms of business outcomes.

They can't do this if they don't modernize their tech framework. And that's where Sapient gets into play, is that they come with us to the client and not only do they explain what we can deliver, but how they are going to get organized operationally to make it happen. And that's the beauty of the model we are building, is Sapient is here to set the foundation of the marketing transformation model that our clients need. So it's, of course, long-term contracts.

Same thing for production. You build a tech stack and then you operate it, okay? And then on new business, as you know, we don't make any comments. We believe that this PR race for wins doesn't make sense. So we don't mention any win any time. But what is certain is that in the 200 basis points, everything is included, the plus and the minus.

Jérôme, clear? Yes. Okay.

The next question, sir, is from Ciaran Donnelly of Citi.

A few from me. I think, firstly, since we last spoke, Meta have released news. So can you give us an insight into 3 things? I guess, one, what the shift to increasingly advertising for agents and not people means for the agencies with respect to opportunities and threats?

Two, can you just give us a sense of how clients are prepared for the shift to agentic advertising at the moment?

And three, how Publicis are positioned relative to peers to help clients navigate this shift?

And then just finally, just on the comments around the return to growth for Sapient in Q4. Should we expect to see that in Europe/Middle East? Is it going to be that recovery? And could you just give us a sense of the comps Q3 to Q4 for Sapient?

Again, maybe we can start on Sapient. We are expecting the overall business to turn positive in Q4. We are not planning for the Middle East to do better so far. And when you look at the news, coming days, I don't think we should. So you know how we do with this. We bake all the risk into the guidance we are giving you, knowing that, by the way, Q4 is an adjustment quarter. So you should not anticipate Middle East to come back to growth for Sapient in the coming months. You should expect Sapient, for the reason I just mentioned, to come back to growth overall in Q4.

Do you want to add something on that, Loris?

No, the situation in the Middle East, and you know Publicis Sapient is a bit more exposed to the Middle East than the rest of our operations, a, because of its presence there, but also because of the impact it's been having on the U.K. hub that is servicing from London some Middle Eastern-based clients. So when we look at Q4, we're not expecting this to change dramatically. Also, there is a very high comparable when you're looking at the Middle East into Q4 that you have to take into account.

Coming back to your 2 first questions. First, definitely, clients are preparing for an agentic world. Everyone knows that this is coming and it's going to change a lot of things. Everyone also knows that it's complex, it's longer than expected and it could be very expensive without direct business outcomes at the beginning, but everyone is preparing for this world.

As I said, this is a 2-speed boat. When it comes to agentic for marketing, clients are moving very fast because, again, their own clients and prospects are moving very fast, so they need to adapt. When it comes to enterprise, they realize that it's a longer process, that it's a lot of change management that it's very costly at a moment where there is a lot of macro uncertainty. So by definition, it is slower.

How Publicis is positioned versus their peers? I should let Loris answer this question because I'm going to get competitive, so I'll have to be careful on that. But more seriously, I mean, I think that if you look at our track record over the last 7 years, and you can expect next year to be the same, we are showing not only the resilience, not only the strength, but also the differentiated model that we have built over the years.

Let's be clear, we did not come there by coincidence. This is something that started 13, 14 years ago now when we acquired Sapient and that Maurice Lévy had the vision that the future was not consolidation, which we could have done at the time, but really to invest in data and technology to build the model of the future. As you know, for those that have been with us for a while, we had a couple of very rough years, where we had to change our operating model, where we had to make those acquisitions, where we had to start to embrace AI in 2017.

But to come back to your question, now I think that the numbers repeatedly for 25 quarters are showing our level of outperformance. And it's basically due to 3 pillars. We have a different model from our competitors. We don't believe that you should be organized by expertise, like media, creative and technology. We believe you have to be organized by countries because you need to break down the P&L among the different capabilities.

This is why by bringing media closer to creative, we are still growing creative when no one is. This is why by bringing now Sapient closer to media and creative, we are returning Sapient to growth, which is not the case of all of the system integrators. So we have a very different model. We have very different capabilities. I mean, some have made the choice to divest their data assets when we have decided to invest, and that has been the big thing with Epsilon.

Some have decided to externalize now their IT professionals, meaning all their data analysts and engineers, where actually we have more than 30% of our population that now are part of that. And that makes a big difference. And last but not least, which I think is not a small thing, is that, as I said in my presentation, it's all about investments. We are a market of 3. We continue to invest in talent. We continue to invest in capabilities.

And what you need to understand, which I think is critical, this is what clients expect. They don't expect us to reorganize, to let people go or to stop making some acquisitions. They are expecting us to invest on their behalf. And the fact that we are investing in the best talent and the best capabilities gives us the kind of results that you can see in Q3 when you look at the business, which is, again, net wins minus losses.

Sorry, I was too long. I know.

No, that's great.

The next question is from Adam Berlin of Goldman Sachs.

I've got 2 questions, please. The first one is, can you just explain the Q4 guidance? So you've guided that it will still be in that 4.5% to 5% range, but Sapient will be positive in Q4 versus negative in Q3. So is there another part of the business that's going to slow down in Q4? Or is this just caution given, as you said, it's an adjustment quarter and you're just being conservative, but it is possible that we could see further acceleration in Q4? That's the first question.

The second question is, there was news in the last couple of weeks that Apple has changed the WebKit on iOS 27, which is blocking some advertising that's possible on Safari and potentially other parts of Apple. I just wondered if you have any comments on what you think the impact of that could be on the ad ecosystem, especially in the context of you buying LiveRamp?

I'll start with the second one. First, as you can imagine, we can't comment on LiveRamp. But what I can tell you is we are not worried at all about the update we heard from Apple because we are used to this kind of thing. And actually, in this case, particularly, we are not exposed. So there is no risk here.

On your guidance question, sorry if there are people from Sapient listening, but as I said, they are very important for us, but honestly, Technology is only 13%. So again, when we have an acceleration, as we have in Q3, this represents basically 20 basis points, an improvement of our growth for the quarter. And so if we turn from slightly negative to positive or slightly positive, this is not going to have a major impact on our total growth. So I think you guys should be very careful with this. It is a very important asset because it's a differentiating asset that makes a lot for our business in general and an area where we have engineers within the company that makes a big difference. But when it comes to revenue, the variation of Sapient doesn't change that much. If I want to be a bit provocative, we didn't have a good Q2 with Sapient, and we still had a great Q2 for the group. So I think you need to be careful there.

Now if I come back to the guidance, I can give you a couple of points more, which is, again, we are confirming our growth of 4.5% to 5%. And we are confident that we're going to be able to outperform the industry for the seventh year in a row, again, this year by far. And if you look at the growth, first, the new business won in H1 gives us the visibility in Q4. The reason why we feel so confident about Q4, and by the way, confident that it will be within the guidance range in Q4, which is important when you know it's an adjustment quarter, is because we have won a lot in H1, and it's having an impact here.

Second, we're going to see in H2 an acceleration versus H1 on the underlying business. Again, when you look at the compounding effect of everything we've been winning over time, I think that shows the strong dynamic and the strong underlying business we're having. And finally, Q4 being an adjustment quarter, we could be close to 5% for the full year, sorry, if the macro economy gets better. So that's what we are expecting. We can't tell you much more. But honestly, I think we are very, very precise in our answer.

The next question is from Conor O'Shea of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Three quick questions from my side as well. Firstly, just on the proportion of revenues in Europe coming from Sapient that took the growth down from 7.7% to 4.7%. So maybe Loris, you could give us that number, please?

Secondly, on LatAm, obviously, a standout number in organic growth this quarter. So a small part of the business, but still not an insignificant contribution. I think the comps were a bit easier this quarter. Anything to call out for Q4? Should we expect a return to a more sort of normal level of growth for that region or potentially as high as Q3?

And then last question, maybe again for Loris, with the rise in market rates in terms of interest rates, what -- how could that impact your net interest costs for '27? I think in the previous rise, it was beneficial because you got more from your cash balances and you're mainly on fixed rates in terms of your debt. Is that still the case? And could you be a beneficiary of that in '27?

Lot of work for you, Loris.

I'm going to take the 3 questions, I think. So on Sapient Europe, just to give you a sense, it's roughly 15% of our total operations and just about 1/4 when it comes to the U.K., as I said, as the U.K. is carrying a lot of operations directed towards the Middle East. So hopefully, this answers your question.

On LatAm, I mean, first of all, we've been very happy with the performance in LatAm for quite some time, as you saw in our results in the past few years. It grew 18.5% in '25. If you look at the first 9 months, it's at 16.3%. We've seen, in particular, in Q3, a very strong performance coming out of Brazil and Mexico, which are the 2 largest geographies for us in the region, and in particular, when it comes to Connected Media, there is minimum impact from inflation maybe compared to some past years. And I would say that our performance in the region is coming from 3 factors.

First, and quite similar to other regions, is we've invested quite a lot in the last few years in differentiated capabilities, starting with our identity solution, as you might remember, and our influencer marketing. Second, our acquisitions in the region like BR Media more recently have been performing very well. And third, there's also a beneficial impact of our new business wins, both globally and locally.

And the last question, which was on interest costs, as you said, our financial debt is fixed in terms of interest rates. So we're not expecting any big movement. As you saw, we raised -- we issued a EUR 500 million bond in September. Again, that's all fixed. So we're not expecting any significant changes into our interest expenses going forward.

If I may, I'll make 2 comments. The first on the U.K., it's pretty unfair for the U.K. team that most of Sapient revenue in the Middle East is reported there. I mean, those guys are on a roll. As you know, this is our second country, and our media and creative operations are growing roughly 7% again this quarter on a very high comparable. So I think it's important to see that outside of the U.S., we also have markets that are booming. I mean, China double digits. It tells you a lot, and that's something that I like a lot about the fact that our growth is spread among the different regions. And so when there is one like the Middle East that is having some problems, by definition, the others can make the work.

The second thing, I will just insist on what Loris said about LatAm because the number, it looks huge, but actually, it's starting from a small base, and LatAm is benefiting from some global wins that are scalable. So when you add 1 or 2 global clients to a small base, then your number goes up. I think it's just a good proof that as a global network, we are working well in a region that is a region for growth for our clients.

It's like China, by the way. As you know, we turned out to be #1 in China now in media billing. So despite all the consolidation in our market, we are #1 in the U.S. and #1 in China, which are the 2 markets that matter the most for our clients. And the fact that we're able to sustain this kind of growth rate, thanks to new business and client wins locally, makes a big difference.

The next question is from Christophe Cherblanc of Bernstein.

So 2 questions from my side. The first one is on the impact of net share gains. You've been delivering 200 basis points plus for several years. That was before the reshape of the competitive landscape. So is it fair to expect the 200 basis points over the next few years? And I know you're not going to be specific, is it going to be more 300, 400 basis points? Is that a realistic assumption?

And the second question is on Q4. You mentioned it's a quarter of adjustments. In the past, what has been the range of adjustments, positive, negative? And is it fair to say that the volatility of Q4 adjustments has been going down because your portfolio has been changing over time?

Thank you. I'm going to let Loris answer the second question. Look, 200 basis points, as you know, is roughly EUR 300 million revenue additional. It's net win. So -- and it's a number that by definition, the basis points are going up as far as our growth goes up. So can we expect more? Honestly, we are extremely, extremely confident in the way the industry is being reshaped.

And I said it very clearly, you see the benefit of 3 players versus 4 for every of the 3 players. And as you can see, everyone is winning more new business, which I think is a good thing because we want the industry to go well. What we are really making a difference, Christophe, is on our retention rate. And what is very important for us at the moment is, yes, continue to win new business, but also making sure that we can grow our own clients by rolling out our model. And that's what we are focusing on.

Christophe, so as you said yourself and as you know well by now, Q4 is very usually for us an adjustment quarter. And if you take a look at '24 and '25, we benefited from what were fairly significant positive end-of-year adjustments. Just to remind you, we grew 6.3% in Q4 2024 and 5.9% last year, which is essentially making our comparable base this year slightly more difficult. But equally, if the macroeconomic context is supportive, we could deliver another strong quarter like we did in Q3. And normally, those positive or negative year-end adjustments tend to be known to us late November, early December. So we still have to wait to see how the quarter progresses. But we still feel pretty confident about Q4.

No, as you can see, the tone is very confident for what is coming because, again, our ability to have a very high, almost 100% retention rate, and the new business pipeline and the ones that we have already won put us, again, in a very strong position.

The next question is from Steve Liechti of Deutsche Bank.

I've just got 3. Just, I may have missed it, but have you actually given us a net new business figure for FY '26? I heard the '27, the 200 basis points. So if you could just give us a hard number there.

Secondly, on Sapient, I know we can kind of work it out roughly. But can you give us a hard number in terms of what the group like-for-like would be ex Sapient, i.e., what's the Sapient drag in the 9 months and maybe the third quarter?

And then the final question is, has Sapient been a material drag on margin at the group level? Or is it relatively small scale, not really affected the group margin? Anything you can say there?

I'll go first on the first question. It's 250 basis points. So that's the contribution of net new business to our business this year. So that's where we are. And again, we were at 200 basis points when we entered the year, and we felt that with the new business we had in H1, we could move to 250, which means that we raised our guidance, and this is being concrete now in Q3 and for sure in Q4.

On Sapient, I will let Loris give you a couple of points. But I don't know for how long you have been following us, but that's a bit -- what we're experiencing at the moment with Sapient is close to what we experienced with Epsilon a while ago, which is what we are doing exceptionally well at Publicis is what we call the Power of One, which is really to bring together our capabilities to make sure that we can deliver for our client's services and products that no one else can. And that's what makes a difference.

I mean, there is a lot of system integrator out there. The difference between us and the others is that we can have an identity-first approach to business transformation, which is a huge difference with consultants simply. And by the way, consultants and system integrators, none of them have identity and data. So none of them are capable to measure and target what are the business outcomes that you can lead out of a marketing transformation and that you can activate later on. So that's a big difference. And again, just to explain to you the beauty of bringing together our data and our technology.

Same thing for creative, we have huge relationships with our clients on creative. And as you see, we are actually growing. Our ability to bring the tech platform of Sapient when it comes to production closer to the ideation and the creative work we are doing give us a huge competitive advantage. All of this to say that the more time is passing, the more it's difficult to distinguish our performance of Sapient with the rest of the business. Having said that, we owe you the transparency of the performance, and this is why we are actually giving you those numbers.

I don't know, Loris, if you want to add something on this.

Yes. Steve, just to, I mean, echo something Arthur has said earlier, which is you have to keep in mind that Sapient is 13% of our net revenue. So whether you're looking at the impact it has on top line or the impact that it has on margin, it is, by definition, fairly limited when you see some improvement either sequentially or moving from slightly negative to slightly positive. So I would not account for too big of an impact that Sapient is having on the quarter.

On the margin, it's the same story. I mean, we've had the question before on Sapient's margin. It's improved over the years. It is still slightly dilutive to the group, but slightly dilutive to the group overall at 13% of our net revenue is having a very minimum impact. So really, the story here is more the impact that Sapient is having on the overall business than looking at it as a separate reporting segment.

But again, if you look at the like 4-, 5-year stack, Sapient is accretive when it comes to our growth and slightly dilutive when it comes to our margin basically is where we are.

[Operator Instructions] The final question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire of Bank of America.

I've got a few questions, if you don't mind. First of all, it seems to be a bit of a new headline that there is -- there are now clients switching agencies without a formal pitch process. How do you manage client conflicts in that case? And I'm also interested to hear if this drives a price uplift versus a classic pitch process?

And then secondly, I noticed the recent win of PepsiCo, for example, is something which has been led seemingly by the CEO of the company, not the CMO. Is that a fair depiction? And also curious if you see different fees if the client relationship is anchored around the CEO or a different person of the C-suite as opposed to the CMO?

I'll start by the second question. So first, as you know, we never comment on new business on clients. So please take that as a general comment, not as something specific to one client.

Your second point, Adrien, is actually highly strategic, which is it's funny because we are small compared to many players and particularly the walled gardens or even some system integrators. But as Publicis, and by the way, under the leadership of Maurice, we have created with CEOs around the world and particularly in the U.S., great relationships. And that makes a big difference because coming back to the question we had earlier on agentic transformation, this has to start from the top. If you're expecting the people in the countries to change by themselves, they won't because it's hard, because it's disruptive, because sometimes it's expensive and the push then needs to come from the top. And so we are increasingly seeing CEOs involved in what we do.

And I'm sure they're seeing that because CEOs are passionate about AI, and they understand that if they want to continue to lead their company, they need to understand AI and who better than us that they trust, that they worked with for years, to, again, listen to our advice. Sometimes they take them, sometimes they don't, but they always listen. So yes, we are strengthening our relationship with CEOs, it's certain.

I think the question you asked about less pitches and conflicts is a big question. I actually talked a bit about that in the trade press today. But although I don't make any specific comments on any client, so please take that more on market facts, but there is a couple of things that I can tell you, which is if you look at our wins in general, there is definitely a new market reality. I mean, I'm not going to come back to that. I hope we've been clear, but there are only today 3 large global players, okay? And what is very interesting, coming back to the question I had before, is that each of us have now a very different model, very different capabilities and very different strategies.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that one is better than another. It's clients we choose, the numbers that we show, we are on the race. We'll see what will happen. But what I can tell you is that in this context, we see an increasing number of clients who know exactly what they want for their business and actually truly understand the difference between the 3 of us.

Will it be the CMO or the CEO, by the way? And those same clients increasingly consider it is way more efficient to spend their time, and by the way, their money digging deeper and actually kicking the tires of the partner they are interested in rather than organizing this kind of big beauty contest for months that actually is disturbing not only the organization, but also losing the focus on those that they need to bring at the moment.

So to be clear, this is something that we are trying -- starting to see, clients that know exactly what they want in a competitive landscape that is very clear with 3 competitors. And instead of spending months just looking at everyone, they focus on the one they want to work with. Now to be clear, this opens the other question, which is how do you manage conflicts? What I can tell you is that now clients perfectly understand that we can manage conflicts because we have the scale to do that. And that's a very, very important point.

And by the way, it's true for us, it's true for our competitors. Those 3 players are big enough to manage conflicts as long as we do 2 things. First, we need to be totally transparent to whom we are working with. Second, we need to make sure that we bring the right firewalls in terms of people, in terms of capabilities and in terms of geographies, which again, means you need to have some scale. But just to give you an idea, this is what our clients are already doing. They are doing it with a data platform. They are doing it with cloud solutions. They are doing it with system integrators. They are doing it with consultants. This is something that they are already doing, and now, they understand that they can do it with us.

And thank you for asking the question because this is a big shift. I understand that it's important to focus on Publicis, but I think it's good also for you to see that the industry is moving. The industry is simpler. There is more opportunity for each and even more opportunity for Publicis.

I think there are no more questions, right? So I'm just going to close by, again, thanking you for listening, and thank you for all the questions because I think they were highly strategic questions. I hope you're going to take basically 3 key messages out of our Q3 performance is that we are basically accelerating on every front, organic growth, new business, market share gains, Sapient. And hopefully, you feel it also in our tone, we are very confident for the end of the year, and for 2027, we will outperform again.

Second, I said it, the competitive landscape has been totally reshaped. And as investors, looking at our industry, I think it's good news for all of the 3 players and particularly for us because, again, we are investing in talent, we are investing in capabilities, and we are accelerating our pace of growth versus competition.

And last but not least, I wish we had spent even more time on that. Hopefully, quarter after quarter, we are making the demonstration that AI is a tailwind on our growth and on our margin. And so to be clear, what we are focusing on at the moment is really rolling out our model with our clients because as you ask, they are focused on their own agility transformation and focusing on our own execution.

Well, thank you very much. [Foreign Language], have a great day, and I'm sure we'll talk soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your devices.

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Publicis Group First Half 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Group. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Judith, Borgo, and welcome to Publicis Group First Half 2026 Earnings Call. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I'm here in Paris is our CFO, Loris Nold. Jean-Michel Bonamy is also here and will be available to take all of your questions off-line after this call. I will start this presentation by sharing the main highlights of our Q2 and H1 performance showing an acceleration on all fronts. Louis will then walk you through the full details of our numbers. And I will come back with outlook and the reason for our confidence in raising our guidance and sustaining our strong momentum in H2 and beyond. As usual, we will take all of your questions together after the presentation. But before we start, please take the time to read the disclaimer, which is an important legal matter. Let's dive into the presentation with actually 4 key highlights. In a nutshell, in the first half of the year, we have been accelerating on all fronts. First, on net organic growth, with Q2 at plus 4.8% despite a tougher comparable and a still challenging macro environment. Second, on new business with a very strong first part of the year, which allow us to raise our guidance. Third, on our financial KPIs starting with our headline margin increasing to 17.5% while investing further on our talent in AI and in ramping up our new business wins. Fourth, on our differentiation and addressable market expansion through strategic acquisitions, leveraging the strength of our balance sheet.

Let's start with the details of our top line performance. In Q2, we once again reaffirmed our ability to deliver even in challenging macroeconomic conditions. Organic growth came in at plus 4.8% in on a net revenue basis. As expected, this represents a sequential acceleration versus our Q1 at plus 4.5% and and despite a 100 basis point higher comparable base in an increasingly uncertain geopolitical context. This acceleration was driven by our marketing transformation activities, representing 87% of our net revenue, where we continue to capture a disproportionate share of our client demand for AI-powered services and products. They grew at plus 6.5% organically in Q2 compared to plus 5.6% in Q1, ahead of our 6-year CAGR at plus 5.3%. This contributed to further widening the gap with our peers to 610 basis points in Q2 according to consensus. In detail, Connecting Media, representing 62% of our net revenue, delivered a very strong performance again this quarter. at high single-digit growth accelerating versus Q1. This performance was driven by double-digit growth in Europe and high single-digit growth in the U.S. It reflects our continued ability to accelerate market share gains, thanks to our scaled AI-powered media offering. Intelligent creativity, which is 25% of net revenue posted solid low single-digit growth in line with the expected long-term growth profile of the segment. The only part of our business that was seriously impacted by the macroeconomic uncertainty and particularly the Middle East conflict is technology, as experienced by other IT consulting firm, including the market leader. We continue to see delays in large transformation programs, of course, in the Gulf but with a direct effect on many other geographies and companies. This led to mid-single-digit decline in Publicis Sapient representing 13% of group net revenue. I will make just 2 remarks on Sapien performance. First, comparing Q2 with Q1 I would highlight that Sapien faced a significant offer comp in Q2 of 600 basis points versus Q1. And therefore, we saw a sequential stabilization in terms of net revenue. Second, our ability to accelerate in Q2 and raise our guidance at group level despite those macroeconomic challenges, makes our performance and resilience even more remarkable.

Turning to our geographies. We had another strong demonstration of the consistency and resilience of our country model globally. In particular, our 2 largest regions, totaling 86% of our net revenue, both grew organically at 5% or above. The U.S. was up 5.5%, accelerating versus Q1, driven by high single-digit growth in Connected Media with major wins from last year ramping up.

Europe, delivered a very strong plus 5% growth broad-based across markets, accelerating strongly versus Q1 despite a much higher comp of close to 200 basis points. Asia Pac recorded a plus 2.6% growth with strong performance in Greater China at plus 7.5%, while we experienced localized softness in Southeast Asia. LatAm continues its excellent trajectory at plus 11%.

EMEA was done minus 8.3%, as expected, directly impacted by geopolitical tension in the region.

Moving to our second highlights. Our very strong new business performance in the last months make us confident in delivering the same momentum in H2 as in H1. In the last 18 months, we have seen a dramatic reduction of the competitive landscape due particularly to consolidation. After a very strong finish to 2025 we have had a couple of very sizable wins in the first half of the year with a real material financial impact that will start to progressively ramp up through the back end of the year, but also some local wins with more immediate impact on our numbers. That makes us very confident in raising our guidance range from 4% to 5% to 4.5% to 5%.

Third, we accelerated on all our financial KPIs. We improved our H1 headline operating margin again this year to 17.5%. We were able to unlock 50 basis points of margin improvement as we continue to extract operating leverage, allowing us to reinvest more than 30 basis points in our new business, AI plan and our talent pool upgrade and deliver the remaining 17 basis points in margin increase. Headline EPS came at EUR 3.52 in H1 2026, up 5.7% at constant currencies. -- and headline free cash flow reached EUR 957 million in H1, up 20.8% at constant currency. Getting to our fourth and final highlights. In H1, we are accelerating on our differentiation with 2 important strategic acquisitions. We finalized the acquisition of 160 over 90 in sport marketing by putting Epsilon data at this core and connecting it to our end-to-end media ecosystem, we will be uniquely positioned to make sports the fastest-growing media segment of our industry, addressable and measurable at scale. And we announced the acquisition of LiveRamp in May, which, once closed, will enable us to enter a totally new addressable market, data cocreation. With Rivera as part of our strong interconnected ecosystem of Publicis Sapient, Epsilon and Marcell, we will go even further and faster in delivering agentic transformation for our clients safely and transparently in their own environment. Thanks to their successful integration into our power of and model and their ability to open up new addressable markets. Get our bolt-on acquisitions over the last 2 years have delever close to 20% annual organic growth on a stand-alone basis. EPS growth acceleration at group level and a strong contribution to our new business wins. Our ability to continue expanding our capabilities and addressable market has been made possible, thanks to the strength of our balance sheet. Actually, there is 1 last highlights for H1. -- after the -- can Lions name Publicis can say, Agency of the Year for the past 2 years, and their client AXA as Brand of the Year in 2025. The festival has now recognized LopaMiller as its 2026 Agency of the Year. It's an incredible accomplishment that is only made better by the fact that Heineken, our global client since 2014 has been named creative brand of the year. This latest achievement from Lean Mulan is everything we love at Publicis, breakthrough work for iconic brands that demonstrate the power of creative ideas to transform our client businesses. I will now hand over to Loris to take you through the Q2 and H1 financials in detail before I return with our outlook and strategic update.

Thank you, Arthur, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin with the key highlights of our H1 2026 results. Revenue was EUR 8. 734 billion, up 3% versus 2025, and and up 5.3% on an organic basis. Net revenue was EUR 7. 229 billion, up 1.1% versus 2025 and and up 4.7% on an organic basis. Operating margin was EUR 1.261 billion, up 1.5% versus 2025 and and up 7.4% at constant currency, while the operating margin rate reached 17.4%. When excluding the LiveRamp transaction costs, headline operating margin was EUR 1.268 billion, with a record headline operating margin rate of 17.5%, up 17 basis points versus 2025.

Headline net income was EUR 885 million, down 0.5% on a reported basis, but up 5.3% at constant currency. Last, free cash flow before change in working capital was EUR 950 million. When excluding the LiveRamp transaction costs, headline free cash flow was up 20.8% at constant currency. I will now get into the details of the P&L, free cash flow and balance sheet, starting with Q2 revenue and net revenue. Q2 revenue was EUR 4.743 billion, up 4.2% on an organic basis. Net revenue was EUR 3 billion and EUR 769 million. Organic growth was plus 4.8%, which comes on top of plus 5.9% in Q2 2025. I -- there was a negative impact of currency of 170 basis points due to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, the pound sterling and several LatAm and APAC currencies versus the euro. And acquisitions, net of disposals contributed a positive 110 basis points, reflecting the impact of our 2025 and 2026 acquisitions namely captivate, P-value, hetmell, GI and 160over90. When factoring in those items, net revenue was up 4.2% on a reported basis. .

Let's move to the next slide and our Q2 net revenue by region. North America was up 5.4% on an organic basis on top of plus 5.8% in Q2 2025. There was a negative impact of the U.S. dollar versus euro, partly offset by the contribution from acquisitions and reported revenue was up 4.4% in Q2. Europe delivered plus 5% in organic growth. There was a negative impact of the pound sterling versus euro leading to reported growth of plus 4.2% for the region. Asia Pacific posted plus 2.6% organic growth. There too, there was a negative impact of currency depreciation versus euro offset by the contribution from acquisitions, leading to a reported growth of plus 2.8% in Q2.

Latin America continued to perform very strongly and reported plus 11% organic growth. When adding the negative impact of currencies and the contribution of acquisitions, reported growth was at plus 13.5%. And finally, Middle East and Africa was impacted by the geopolitical situation, leading to an organic decline of minus 8.3%.

Let's get into more details for each region, starting with North America. In the U.S., the group's largest geography which represents 58% of our net revenues, organic growth was plus 5.5% after plus 5.3% in Q2 last year. Connected Media was up high single digits and intelligent creativity was up mid-single digits, benefiting from new business wins and scope expansions. Technology was down mid-single digit in Q2.

Let's now turn to the performance in Europe on the next slide. The U.K., which represents 9% of our net revenue posted a plus 2.8% organic growth. When excluding technology, organic growth was plus 8.1% and driven by very strong growth in Connected Media. Technology was down as public Sapiens in U.K. is servicing some clients based in the Middle East. France, which represents 5% of our net revenue was close to flat. Lastly, our operations in Central and Eastern Europe were up double digit driven by strong growth in all segments with Poland, Romania and Czech Republic performing very well.

Turning to the next slide for our performance in the rest of the world. Asia Pacific, which represents 9% of our net revenues, was up 2.6% organically. China continues to be very solid at plus 7.5% organic growth in Q2 partly mitigated by a softer performance in Southeast Asia, largely due to the impact of the Middle East conflict. Latin America posted a plus 11% organic growth in Q2, driven by double-digit growth in Connected Media and Intelligent creativity, in particular, in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. As mentioned earlier, Middle East and Africa posted 8.3% organic decline in Q2 with UAE and Lebanon being the most impacted countries as expected. In Q2, we estimated that the conflict in the Middle East had a negative impact of 30 basis points on our net organic growth.

For your reference, you'll find on the next slide, our H1 2026 performance by region. As you can see, all regions posted a strong organic performance, leading to plus 4.7% in total for the group, on top of plus 5.4% in H1 2025. Last, net revenue was up 1.1% on a reported basis.

Moving to the next slide and our simplified P&L down to the operating margin. Personnel expenses, excluding restructuring charges, were down 0.6% year-on-year, generating 110 basis points in margin improvement. Restructuring charges increased by 21% due to the continued investment in talent upgrades with a 17 basis point impact on margin. Other operating expenses to the next slide and our simplified P&L down to the operating margin. Excluding the Live rent acquisition costs, were up 7.1% and representing 70 basis points of incremental costs as a percentage of net revenue. Depreciation was up 2.7%, mainly due to increased IT investments. Headline operating margin was EUR 1.268 billion, up 2.1% versus last year. At constant currency, the increase was plus 7.4%. Headline operating margin rate was 17.5%, up 17 basis points against the record level of 2025. When including the LiveRamp transaction costs, Operating margin was EUR 1.261 billion. .

Moving to our next slide and our operating margin bridge. -- our headline margin was up by 17 basis points, which includes, first, an improvement of 110 basis points of personnel costs, excluding restructuring charges, driven by 3 main factors: some scalability benefits on our 2025 recruitments, combined with some early impact from our densification initiatives on task optimization, some rebalancing between our people costs and G&A when it comes to our AI investments as we rolled out our AI productivity tools to our talent. Some adjustments, including at Publicis Sapient and our continued cost management discipline, notably when it comes to recruitment in H1. And second, this improvement was mitigated by 2 factors: a 17 basis points increase in our restructuring charge as we continue to upgrade our talent pool and a 76 basis points increase in our other costs, reflecting, in part, higher spending on AI products and tools and some additional depreciation linked to our IT investments.

Moving now to our headline income statement below operating margin and focusing on the main items. Headline net financial expenses were a charge of EUR 62 million versus EUR 44 million in 2025, mostly attributable to lower interest income for our U.S. dollar cash balance. Headline net income tax was EUR 312 million with an effective tax rate of 25.9%. We -- the increase versus 2025 is due to positive nonrecurring impact of some tax audits in 2025 and lower deductible LTP expenses in 2026. Headline net income was EUR 885 million, down 0.5% versus 2025. Again, the increase was 5.3% at constant currency.

Next slide, our headline EPS fully diluted grew by 5.7% at constant currency to reach EUR 3.52. On a reported basis, it grew at plus 0.3%.

Moving to the next slide, free cash flow. Our free cash flow before change in working capital reached EUR 950 million up 14.7% versus 2025 and up 19.9% at constant currency. Headline free cash flow before change in working capital was up 20.8% at constant currency. Increase in EBITDA of EUR 26 million contributed to the year-on-year growth. There was also a tailwind in tax paid, mostly resulting from nonrecurring payments in 2025 and some benefits following the change in tax regulation in the U.S. in H2 2025. This was partly mitigated by higher financial interest charge resulting from lower cash balances in U.S. dollars.

Moving to the next slide, use of cash. in H1 2026, Change in working capital represented an outflow of EUR 2.089 billion, fully in line with our expectations and reflecting the usual seasonality. The year-on-year deterioration of EUR 344 million in H1 cash outflow is largely explained by the reversal of the EUR 234 million positive effect recorded at year-end 2025. Acquisitions, including paid earnout, amounted to EUR 672 million. It includes the upfront cash payments for AI and 1600 and the payment of earn-outs related to influence. On share buybacks, we spent EUR 181 million in H1 2026 to cover our LT plans. Other known in cash items represented a positive EUR 235 million versus a negative EUR 274 million in H1 2025. I -- there are 2 main reasons for the EUR 509 million swing. 2025 was impacted by currency translation deterioration with the depreciation of currencies versus the euro. Change in earn-outs improved by EUR 214 million versus H1 2025 as H1 2026 included the elimination of the earn-out debt related to influential -- when you consider payment for acquisitions and new earnouts, we invested EUR 517 million in H1 2026. Overall, net cash decreased by EUR 1.763 billion in. Moving to my last slide, net financial debt. The average net debt on the last 12 months was EUR 1.11 billion, representing an increase of EUR 295 million compared to last year due to the acquisitions completed over the last 12 months. We closed H1 2026 with a net debt of EUR 1.25 billion. And the financial leverage remained roughly stable at 1 time as expected. This concludes my financial presentation, and I now give the floor back to you, Arthur.

Thank you, Loris. As you just saw, in Q2, we have been accelerating on all fronts, organic growth, new business, financial KPIs and the differentiation of our model. This makes us very confident in sustaining our strong momentum for the rest of the year and raising our guidance despite persistent macroeconomic uncertainties -- we now expect an organic growth range of plus 4.5% to 5%, which represents an acceleration in H2 versus H1 when adjusted for the 40 basis points of comparable -- we are confirming our guidance on an operating margin rate slightly above 18.2% in 2026. And we now expect our free cash flow to reach circa EUR 2.2 billion, up from circa EUR 2.1 billion previously. There are actually 3 major reasons that make us confident in sustaining our momentum in this challenging time both for the end of the year and as we enter 2027. First, we continue to win market share, thanks to our differentiated model. To cut the long story short, not only are we winning more than our competition, but we are also losing less. As evidenced in our guidance upgrade, we have sustained our very strong new business track record in the first part of the year. with several large wins, some that were made public and some that were not. As you know, we don't disclose our new business wins as we are not chasing for headlines. But just to give you an idea, the 6 major wins of the last 6 months alone will secure close to 200 basis points of growth on a full year basis when they fully ramp up. But what I believe is more remarkable is that being at the heart of our client transformation allow us to have a very high retention rate of close to 100%. In fact, we haven't had any losses in the last 12 months that could materially impact in the next 12 months. Second reason for our confidence is that we are growing with our clients, thanks to AI AI has, first and foremost, been a structural tailwind for us for several years now. Since the rise of January 3 years ago, we have actually grown by circa 20% allowing us to continue increasing the gap with our peers. Actually, over the last 3 years, we have grown 4x faster than our competition on average. AI allows us to connect our unmatched capabilities in data media production and technology and meet client investments to business outcomes. It has contributed significantly in accelerating the performance of our marketing activities, which represent 87% of our revenue. This was visible once again when those capability grew organically by 6.5% versus 5.6% in Q1. Those of you who came to our presentation in can hear directly from 2 of our largest clients that we won in the last year, how we are able, thanks to AI data and technology to transform their marketing model and deliver high growth at a lower cost in a unique way. This is the main reason why we are growing our client base by 200 to 300 basis points every year. AI also continued to be a productivity boost with significant gains from automation and task optimization. Actually, since the launch of our AI platform, Marcellin 2017, we have almost doubled our EBITDA and our margin has increased by 270 basis points over the last 8 years. Last but not least, the third reason for our confidence is our continued investment in talent and capabilities. Our strategy in the last 18 months has been the polar opposite of our competitors. Not only have we been acquiring new capabilities from commerce to influencers and now sports and data corporation, but we have also been investing in talent. -- by recruiting and retaining the best profiles, training everyone for this new world and reinventing how our team operates with AI tools. This is highly valued by our clients who are looking for partners who can invest on their behalf, in the capabilities they need to win and the people who can get them there. From that perspective, our strong financial structure is clearly a competitive advantage. -- as it positions us as a trusted partner of our clients all along their transformation journey. Our only focus will remain execution as we deleverage our balance sheet over the next 18 months. Well, as you have seen in H1, not only have we demonstrated once again the consistency and the reliability of our business performance, but we have actually accelerated on every front. This allows us to upgrade our organic growth guidance and improve every financial KPI for the rest of the year despite ongoing macroeconomic difficulties. Our net new business the growth we deliver with our clients, thanks to AI and our continued investment in our talent and capabilities make us confident in maintaining our momentum beyond 2026, and in reaffirming our '27 and '28 objectives of delivering at least 7% to 8% net revenue growth on average and 8% to 10% annual headline EPS growth at constant currencies. Let me finish by thanking our team for their incredible work and our clients for their trust. Thank you all for listening. And now with Loris, who will take all of your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question is from Adam Berlin at Goldman Sachs.

3 questions, if I could. The first question is around 2027 organic growth. We've obviously got good trends in media and creative. -- uncertainty about what's going to happen with Sapient. But is it -- is there any reason why we wouldn't see this momentum in media and creative continuing into 2027 as we put together forecast for next year? That's the first question. The second question is, we had a short cease fire in the Middle East for a few weeks. Can you just talk about what you saw in terms of demand for services. Did they kind of quickly bounce back and then get subdued again when the spire stopped? Or was it not really much changed during that brief period just to get a sense of what might happen when hopefully, the war finally ends. And then the third question is for Loris, you talked a little about 7% growth in underlying operating -- other operating costs, and you mentioned AI. Is that essentially tokens are we seeing kind of the higher cost of tokens come into your business? Is that something we should expect to continue? Do you have a plan to kind of manage those costs as you continue to use AI more in your client work? Any thoughts on how that might develop would be very helpful.

Thank you, Adam. I'm going to take 1 and 2, and I guess I will leave you 3. Look, it's a bit early to talk about '27, I guess. What I can tell you is a couple of things is you have seen over the year, the strength of our media and creative business -- by the way, not only in winning new business but in increasing our revenue with existing clients and not losing big clients. So far, I'm touching wood because it could happen any time. But again, when we look at '27, it's definitely too early to give you an indication, but there is a good sign of confidence. The first is the new business we have won recently allow us today to be very confident that we will deliver again 200 basis points next year. The second that for me is the most important 1 because it's the 1 that could keep me awake from sleeping is we haven't lost any big clients in the last 6 months that could have an impact at least for the beginning of next year. So that means that we are answering '27 with a good dynamic. And maybe the most important 1 them for next year and in general is -- we have a conjunction at Publicis of 2 incredibly strong factor that again makes us very confident for the future, and this is why we are reiterating our guidance for '27 and '28 is that on 1 side, you have seen a drastic reduction of the competitive landscape. I mean, five years ago, we had the double of player at global level that we have today. And let's be clear, it doesn't mean that the smaller players are not tenders locally. But when it comes to big marquee company with huge spend, I will, let's say, above EUR 800 million. the competitive landscape has been reduced from 4 to 3 players. So that is helping us. And what is on the top of that is that not only the competitive landscape is reducing but on the other hand, our addressable market is just increasing. This is why we have insisted on the 20% growth of our bolt-on acquisition. We are -- thanks to our balance sheet and the strength of our balance sheet investing in new sector that will allow us to grow. So again, don't expect any number from us, but expect already us outperforming the industry again in 2027. It's a bit early to say, but we feel confident about that when you look at new business and addressable market and entering into H1 2027 with a lot of confidence. The Middle East question is a very big question. So the impact of the Middle East as a business is basically not really material because it's 3% of our revenue. Yes, it has been declining. -- but nothing significant that would change anything a bit on the margin, by the way. And I think it's interesting to see that not only we are accelerating, but but sustaining our momentum despite these kind of things that are having an impact. Now your question is more interesting on the fact that the Middle East is having not an impact on the demand and the service. I think that, again, if I take a step back, you need to look at those challenging times that our clients are having a very different attitude when it comes to OpEx and CapEx investments. So on the 1 hand, they know that if they cut their marketing spend, they will lose market share. That actually will be very difficult to win back. They have experienced that many times. So they are very aware -- and honestly, this is why despite the conflict in the Middle East, we continue to capture a disproportionate share of our client demand when it comes to AI power marketing services and products. I mean, again, it's 87% of our business, and it has been growing in Q2 by 6.5%. And we are seeing, thanks to that, every effort we have made, how we have implemented AI allowing us to increase the gap by more than 600 basis points based on consensus with our peers. Where there is a difficulty is that on the other hand, the lack of visibility that is due to these geopolitical events are actually now coming back on the top -- and it's true that it led all of our clients in the IT services to delay further their large discretionary expenditure that are more about CapEx in this case. And this wait-and-see attitude LSE has been very well drafted by the competitors of Sapient and particularly the leader. So I won't insist on that. But again, when you compare like-for-like, the kind of slowdown in CapEx investment is also our case with Sapiens. Again, I'm going to insist a lot on that, and I'm sure there will be a question about Sapet later, but -- what is very important for us, and hopefully, you see this in our performance is that despite this challenging environment will be the Middle East will it be what is happening in the IT sector, we are able to raise our guidance. And actually, we are expecting an acceleration in H2 versus H1 on an underlying basis. And this is thanks to the strength of our overall model. I'm going to stop here. I'm sure there will be a question on Sapient, so we'll come back. But Loris, I will pass on you. .

Sure. Adam. So when you're looking at AI run costs, I would make 3 or 4 comments -- the first is those are typically for licenses and usage. And as such, they are very much a normal operating cost. The second is we have good visibility on real-time consumption including at the user level, and we track them on a daily basis with limits and alerts that we put in place to monitor and control the usage -- the third point is, as you saw from H1, there is definitely a rebalancing between the people cost and tech cost, and we've said that before. But we're expecting it to stabilize now. What we are observing, if anything, is that the productivity benefits that those tools can generate do offset the cost, and it's been clearly evidenced in our margin improvement. So if anything, it's been having a positive impact on our margin, and we anticipate this to continue. .

Yes. We can't go in the detail of what we are doing there, but it's incredible to see how wearable not only to accelerate on our top line, but accelerate on our bottom line, all of this while investing massively into our future. .

The next question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire , Bank of America.

Thank you very much. I've got a few, please. Art, on the 6 accounts you mentioned, are these new clients? Or is that scope of work expansion with existing ones? Secondly, on your Connected Media performance, in particular, in the U.S. Is that a function of clients increasing their marketing budgets? Or is that more a function of Publicis increasing its wallet share, let's say, with those clients? And then lastly, on, I'm just trying to reconcile your comments you made recently about the fact that clients are willing to pay more for people than technology. And then at the same time, we see that, indeed, you're spending more on technology than on people perhaps in the first half, I mean, in terms of percentage growth in absolute terms. If we could just reconcile those comments. .

Yes. I'm going to go the other way and I'm going to stop by the third. To be clear, and this is a discussion we had is that we believe that we need to have the right balance between people and technology. I like -- and I know it's a bit provocative in the AI world, but I'd like to say that we are still a service business. We are a service business with the best capabilities of our industry and beyond in data technology and of course, AI. But the truth is the reason why we have been performing so well today is that we have the right balance between the best people of the industries and unique capabilities, all of this working through the power of well. And by the way, if you look outside of the holding company world, even in the LLM world or in the tech world, the companies that are striving today are the ones that have this good balance between service and product because, again, and maybe the question will come back later. AI is very difficult to implement at an enterprise level -- it's difficult to scale. It's very expensive. It doesn't deliver business outcome immediately. And so yes, you need the best capabilities, but you also need the right people to take the client by the end and bring in to this. And this is why, by the way, -- we continue to invest in our talent and the least we can say is that we also invest in our capabilities. Connected Media in the U.S. Now the truth is we are winning market share. And I'll come back to that on new business. Clients are spending more with us. I'm not even talking about new business because your question was more on our clients. The reason why we can go 200 to 300 basis points with our clients. And actually, it's way more when you look at connecting media is exactly for the reason I explained earlier about the addressable market. When you take leadership, is the influential influencer world. You see your revenue growth. You win in new business, but you see revenue growth. When you invest heavily in Agenticcommerce, you see our revenue growth tomorrow, when we're going to invest or actually when we're going to scale sports and make it addressable and measurable. We're going to see our revenue growth. So we are continuing to nourish new capabilities our connected media system, and of course, our clients, and we are growing from there basically.

Now coming back to your question on new business, let me take a second on that and try to wrap up a lot of things that has been said because I know there have been a lot of questions in the recent weeks. And again, this morning, we already received a few. I mean First of all, and you would remember that we had a very good finish of 2025, very high finish. And the truth is we also had a very strong first half of the year when it comes to overall new business basically and honestly, thanks to the differentiation of our model, but also because, as I said before, the competitive landscape has been dramatically reduced. -- and some players has been a bit distracted recently. So what we wanted to give you, again, as in everything we are doing today is give you clarity, visibility, okay? And so we basically had 6 major wins, which are to answer your question, new accounts. It's new client. If it's an existing client, it goes into our client growth. If it's a new business, is that it's a new client. And this has allow us those new clients, those 6 new clients has allowed us to rapidly deliver -- we will deliver thanks to those wins, 200 basis points of contribution on a full year basis. I mean, we are talking here about EUR 300 million of net new revenue for the group. I think it's important to understand the magnitude of what we're talking to, okay? And to give you a bit more color because I think it's important, this is going to ramp up. But out of the 200 basis points, there will be only 50 basis points this year. This is why, by the way, we are upgrading our guidance because now we feel confident that we see those 50 basis points, we can upgrade our guidance and the other EUR 150 million is going to be for 2027, both the question I had before, which again makes us confident for next year. Now I know it's a bit complicated. And I'm sorry because as you know, we don't comment on new business wins. We don't give you names. We don't do the price and because we don't talk to the trade press about what we win, there are some things that you can see and other that you can't. And we have a big question about that, that has come many times, which is, okay, some of your competitors have been planning basically for the last 3 quarters through actually be lines that they have done even better than us, okay? Let's be clear, if it's not only a line it should translate after what is 9 months into their numbers and their performance starting now. And honestly, this would be great for the industry because we need our peers to do well. So if they are doing even better, great, but I think what is important for you to take out of that is what matters is not the press line is how what we win translate into growth and margin. And I guess when you look at the last 7 years, we have been #1 in new business, we have made a good case out of that. And again, I'm sorry, we are not disclosing more than this. But for many reasons, we have decided to stop a couple of years ago. And as you can see in our performance, it has pretty helped us. So I'm going to stop there. I know I'm talking too much. So now I'm going to make shorter answer because I'm very frustrated about the Tuesday game, so I'm trying to recover. Let's go the game, the soccer. Next question.

The next question is from Jerome Bodin, BHF.

Three questions on my side. The first one, just to follow up on the Middle East question. So can you just precise what's the assumption in your guidance? So you said the drag of basis point in Q2. So is that the assumption for H2? And the same question for Sasan is the assumption, a decline of mid-single digit. So that's my first question. The second 1 is on Sapient. So you have not said much so far about the Microsoft partnership. So I don't know if that's the right timing, but I would be curious to have a bit more color on how the relationship is evolving and in particular, on the go-to-market and revenue generation. and staying on Sapient. So you said when you closed -- when you announced the acquisition, that LiveRamp will be integrated within Sapient. So could you just help us to understand the rationale behind this move? Is it just -- is it mainly an organization question, so to make sure that LiveRamp will be seen as independent from Epsilon? Or is it also a commercial decision to leverage the Sapien client relationship and sales force .

I'm going to start very quickly on the LiveRamp question. It won't be part of Sapient. It will be part of technology, to be very clear because it's a tech company and it's a product company by a sense. Again, I will be very, very pleased to answer your question once we close, but there is very little I can say for the moment more than what I said during the call. So again, it's going to be in technology, but not part of Sapient. And by the way, as we are on that, -- we took the day of the acquisition. Since then, honestly, the reaction from our clients has been extremely positive. And to come back to 1 point that has to do with tax, as you might have read here and there -- our competition have raised an issue about neutrality. And the truth is that for our clients -- this is a nonevent, all of them. And the reason why it's an event, which comes back to your question, is that you need to understand that LiveRamp technology is neutral by design. LiveRamp is the technology. It's a platform of data collaboration. And so it will live within our technology. It will work particularly with Sapient to build agent for sure. But more than that, at the moment, it's very difficult for me to tell you. We need to go through the process. And then I promise we'll have a lot of time to answer all of your questions.

On Microsoft, again, we don't talk about any particular client. So I won't be able to give you much more detail, although that the relationship is very, very strong. But maybe I use this opportunity and then I'll pass on to you on the Middle East, and we will start by Sapient, I guess, and then go on to the guidance. To tell you a couple of things about Sapient that hopefully will start to answer your question. First, as we say, like the rest of the IT consulting industry that you know well, -- we are experiencing a slowdown that is only amplified by the middle East crisis. We talked about that, okay? But I think what is very important there and Loris mentioned it, and I did is that actually, Sapient was facing a significant pick of our comp in Q2 versus Q1 of 600 basis points. So actually, those guys have managed to stabilize their net revenue sequentially which is when you look at all the headwinds in the industry is important to note. Second, and that's definitely for your question. So far, I don't know about you, but it's not like we see the world getting any better soon. We saw a couple of news this morning and say how the market is going to react to that. But things so far are not going to get better. So to be clear, we are not including any major improvements in our guidance for H2 for Sapient. So actually, we expect it to be in line with the industry. But -- what is important there is that Sapient only represent 13% of our revenue. And I think this is something that we need to insist on. But when you look at their performance in isolation, Actually, this is not reflecting the full value it creates for the group. Sometimes, I'm asking myself, are we right to put Sapient apart? Because again, it doesn't show what it brings to our group, okay. In a couple of words. Sapient is actually supporting our top line of the marketing activities. The reason why we are growing so fast at 6.5% is not only thanks to our creative and media operation is because on what represents 87% of our revenue. We have Sapient Technology, we have Sapient Engineer, more than 20,000 people that can help us in production that has truly become a taxing. I mean we are growing double digits in production. It's helping us on media that is growing close to double digits. And it's definitely helping to bring some pitches through the enterprise-grade AI solution they've got, and that is making a real difference. And what you don't see there is that it also contribute to our operating margin outperformance versus our peers as we can leverage all of their technology internally. So maybe the thing I want to leave you with on Sapient is that of course, they are part of their business that remain very exposed to the software IT spending that all of our peers -- all of their peers are experiencing. But the true value extends far beyond in own P&L. And so again, maybe in a couple of months, we will spend more time explaining this because the reason why we are performing as we do as a group, has also to do with how we use the Agentic and AI expertise of Sapient for what is 87% of our business, that is growing 6.5% with a good margin, as you have seen in Q2.

And Jerome, a couple of points maybe on the Middle East. I mean, first, as we said before, the reason represents less than 3% of our revenues. And as Art was talking about Sapient, where we see a larger impact from the region is on public Sapient including, by the way, in the U.K. as it's a hub that manages a number of clients based in the Middle East. When you look at the overall impact in Q2 of the Middle East region, it's approximately 30 basis points on the top line, as I said earlier in my presentation. Now looking at the rest of the year, I mean, obviously, we can't predict when the conflict is going to be resolved, but we included in our upgraded guidance, the fact that the situation more or less remains the same. .

Again, the resilience of our model is maybe what we are the product of being able to accelerate in H2 despite all the headwinds we've been just talking, hopefully, is reassuring. And you know the story is that if everything was doing well, imagine what we can deliver when we are delivering 4.8% on such a difficult quarter in terms of headwinds. .

Next question is from Nicolas Langlet, BNP Paribas.

Yes. I've got 3 questions. First one, the full guidance, what has to go right to land at the top end of your organic sales change guidance? Do you need a better macro or potentially the underlying momentum on connected media could be sufficient to reach PI? Second question on the pitch environment, how would you characterize the current pipeline -- and would you say you see more sensitive opportunities for the group in H2 compared to H1? And finally, on personnel costs, -- so they were down 90 basis points in H1. Loris, you mentioned the rebalancing and the adjustment at Sapient. So what would have been the decline on an underlying basis -- and looking ahead, should we expect the gap between net revenue and personnel cost growth to widen from here or to stay roughly at the current level? .

Thank you, Nicolas. So for those that just joined, again, I'm going to start with the guidance. So as you know, we are now expecting our net organic growth to reach roughly between 4.5 to 5, which is an upgrade. And more importantly, this means that we're going to outperform by far our industry for the 7 years in a row. To come back to your question, I will make a couple of comments. First, again, we told you we want to give you visibility. I think it's important to see that we are expecting Q3 and Q4 to be within this new guidance, okay? So again, sustained momentum to come back to your question about what we have been doing. Second, and we have been insisting on that, but we see the same dynamic between H1 and H2. And actually, we see an acceleration when you look at the underlying basis as the comp is tougher. And to come back to your point, honestly, what will make us able to reach the higher end of the guidance is that the macro condition needs to improve, need to improve a bit. We see the lever to get there, don't get me wrong. We are making sure that we are anticipating a world that doesn't change that much now. But if it were to improve for any reason, yes, we should be able to reach the higher end of our guidance. On pitch activity, I mean, it's busy. It's a busy time, and I think that there is some good news and less good news, I would say. The first good news is that clients every day understand more that with the rise of AI, they have to show their partner, and we talked about that, primarily on capabilities and talent. And that's the reason why we're winning. And by the way, the peak are shorter. They are more on capabilities and clients understand this need so much so that in some cases, actually, we are not pitching anymore and winning without a pitch just about the client picking the tires. We have a couple of examples on that. some of them, by the way, are not public. The second news I already talked about it is that the competitive landscape is reducing. So this, of course, improve the chance of the leaders to win. And as we are 1 of them, it's improving our chance to win. I would say the only less good news is that the financial pressure of some of our other players in our industry has led to some pricing behavior sometimes that are not right, the truth, and you know how we behave on that we are trying not to participate when we anticipate that the client is going to be really price driven, which we understand perfectly, but we are not interested by that. We have actually passed in H1 roughly 6 pitches around that because we thought it would be only price-driven. But let's be clear, this is not the norm. And I want to insist on that, and that's something that actually is very encouraging is that clients now understand the value of what we bring. And although, of course, believe me ask for a very competitive offer most of them know that the outcome should be a win-win relationship. You really need to get that is that -- by the way, it's pretty funny because some many, by the way, were saying that be an headwind for us. Not only it is a tailwind when you look at our number, I talked about that. We grew by 20%. We doubled our EBITDA. But even more importantly, AI creates a more complex world. And it means that our clients more than ever need the right capabilities and the right people. And this helped us also in terms of new business. you want to take the last one? .

Yes, Nicolas, on personnel costs, it's a bit too early to guide on the full year when it comes to personnel costs depending on the balance with reinvestment in H2 around talent upgrades and obviously, where we need to invest in new business win ramp-ups. But you should assume that personnel costs go down as a percentage of revenue this year. And as I said earlier, it's a combination of a few factors and maybe it's worth repeating some of them. One, we had some scalability benefits in some of our recruitments of 2025. to which you need to add the early impact of the initiative we've launched when it comes to processes and task optimization through Agentic AI. Definitely, the rebalancing that I spoke about on people cost and G&A when it comes to AI investment as we rolled out those productivity tools, but that again should stabilize given the investments were already made. And then the adjustment that we see here and there, including a public Sapient. So -- but again, what's important is that we confirm the slight improvement in our margin for the full year. .

The next question is from Ciaran Donnelly, Citi.

Most of the questions have at just got a couple left. Arthur actually 1 was on the point you just alluded to in terms of increasing complexity thing we heard at can quite consistently was the shift from traditional search to generation searches leading to this increase in complexity, which is making them rely on our agency partners more -- but actually, 1 of the other things we heard across the board was that it's leading to marketers moving up the funnel in terms of their approach to remaining visible in generative search. Can you just comment on whether you have seen that come through and whether this is going to be a positive tailwind for not just this year, but obviously, the next few years? And then just on your comments around AI productivity. I'm just interested in terms of any internal KPIs you're looking at to try and quantify that? And if you can help us understand that? Is it revenue per head? Or how are you guys trying to quantify the ROI benefit from the AI investment you've made?

Thank you very much. I realize that I'm talking too much and that the our has already passed, so I'm going to make a shorter answer on that. You're raising, of course, very, very important question about how search new search particular GEO will raise. I would make just 1 comment that hopefully you hopefully tell you are bullish and ambitious we are about what is happening is that 3 years from now, [ 60% ] the content that we are producing today won't be for human but for machine. We will continue to produce as much content for human but we will have to produce double of content for machine. And that means that, again, talking about addressable market, if you have the data, if you have the technology, in this case, if you have the production backbone, you should be able to see some growth from the fact that not only we need to talk to humans but also to machine. And this is what I put into the new addressable market. These are areas where we have a lot of opportunities because -- and I will close by that, because we have the capabilities because let's be clear, there is no way you're going to be able to talk to machine properly and transform that into sales if you don't have identity. Because at the end of the day, you need an anchor that will allow you to see a person -- I'm sorry to be a bit technical. But when the LLM go on to the web to look for something, there is no digital trace of the consumer. So if you don't have an identity to make sure that you can link your investment to business outcome, you're basically blind. And that's where we have a big advantage. .

So on the topic of AI productivity gains, I think there's probably 3 things that are important to say. The first is, and Arthur said it earlier, it's early days. And so we need to remain very cautious. I don't need to go back on all the recent studies, including MIT 1. That shows that, what, 95% of AI pilot turn no or negligible and it's largely due to what we said earlier, which is the complexity and the cost. More specifically, when it comes to us, I think it's safe to say that we have not lost a minute -- and we've been executing what is largely a 2-step plan. The first, and I mentioned this earlier, we've been looking at certain tasks and manual processes -- and we are aiming to cut volume of those tasks by an average of 25% and then scaling it across the operation, and that is well underway. And the second point is, as it was mentioned earlier, through our partnership with Microsoft, we've essentially equipped and trained the vast majority of our 110,000 or so talents with AI productivity tools, and it's really helping them work faster, better and most importantly, focus on higher-value work. The third point that I would make is -- and probably the best KPI you can look at is that our plan is delivering a margin improvement. And so again, we generated 17 basis points of margin improvement after reinvesting it was around 30 basis points, again, of our efficiency gains into talent upgrades and overall II plan. So if you look at what's in front of us, I would say that this plan should allow us to sustain our margin improvement commitments while continuing to invest in transforming our talent pool.

The next question is from Conor O'Shea.

Yes. 3 quick questions from my side as well. Just to come back on the tailwind from new wins secured in the first half that will benefit the second half and 2027. I think also, you mentioned 200 basis points. From memory, I think in previous quarters, after a very strong '25, it was closer to 250 basis points, if I remember right, is that suggesting at the moment, it's slightly weaker in terms of the contribution, although still very good with a lot of new business in play? Or Am I reading too much into that?

And then a couple of quick questions maybe for Loris. In terms of the U.K. business, can you give us a sense of how -- what proportion of the U.K. business is to is the tech activity? And then the final question in terms of the French business. Just to understand why the out-of-home or the drugstore business was dragging down growth as significantly as it was in the Q2. If you could just give us a little bit of color on that.

So first of all, don't read too much into what we said. It's actually a very, very good new business track record for this year. We're going to reach 250 basis points this year. This is why we are upgrading our margin. So our guidance, not our margin. And we feel very strong about the dynamics. Finishing with H1 with 250 basis points of new business for 2026 and already feeling good for 2027 is the best position we can be in at the moment, honestly. So only good news on that front. -- you want to talk quickly about UK and France? .

Yes. I mean on the U.K., when you look at the overall performance, as I said earlier, excluding the tech business, -- we're at 8.1% in the quarter, so we continue delivering very strong performance, primarily driven by actually both Connected Media and intelligent creativity and a lot of new business and market share wins. Sapient is a little bit difficult to explain in the U.K., as I said earlier, because it's partly a domestic business and partly international operations of Sapient. This is why I said there was an impact of the Middle East. And so it's servicing a number of markets from the U.K. base -- and so if you look at the revenue that it generates, it's probably close to 30% of the total group revenue in the U.K. but not all of it is U.K. specific. So it's hard to isolate the performance in U.K.

On France, it's the difference between the 4%. And what I said in my earlier remark, which is France was flat, is the impact of the outdoor business, which is Media transport. It's largely a phasing and a comparable effect and then the retail business, which is the drug store, which is fairly small in our operations.

But Conor, thank you for raising the question because we talk a lot about the U.S. and you have seen our media and creative operation are performing actually beyond 6% or 7%. But -- what is very encouraging is that we see the same kind of trend in our #2 countries, which is the U.K., and Lorir just told you, I mean -- 4% for France when you extract this media activity shows you that it's a good performance in a market that is very difficult. -- and I will never insist enough on our Chinese performance. The 7.5% in the market that is declining for most of our peers. And as it in many cases, the second market for many of our clients, sometimes the first market is a huge competitive advantage. And you should expect more good news from China in the coming weeks, actually. .

The next question is from Anna Patrice , Berenberg.

Thank you very much for the answer, sorry provided. 3 questions from my side. First of all, on the LiveRamp because you highlight again how independent supply ramp is important. What were your discussions with the clients so far? Because I saw that Liam is now also doing the advertisement that they will say independent in the governance. So how important it is? And what's the feedback from the clients since acquisition. The second question is on the net new win business. So you're showing in your presentation the 2025 plus H1 2026, we'll take only H1 2026, what would that number stand for you and for the competitors? And then the last question, you're talking about 200 basis points coming from net new business wins. -- what should be the underlying growth that we should add those numbers to? So what should be your growth of the existing clients underlying without those net new business

I don't think we're in a position to answer number two, I did not understand very well, but you were asking us to compare with peers which we don't do. So this record answer. The 200 basis points that we are talking about is pure new business. As we said, let's say, we grow between 4% and 5%, okay? There is between 2% and 300% of this growth that comes from existing clients that we are growing. And this includes the fact that we don't lose any clients. And on the other hand, you have between again, 250 to 200 million that comes from new business, which are new clients that we can have. And as I told you, it takes between 3 months to 9 months to ramp up the business. And this is why the new 200 basis points that we won in H1 is slowly starting to ramp up in H2 and will accelerate in Q1 -- on LiveRamp, I don't know if you were here when I raised the point, but actually, this neutrality thing is a nonevent for our clients. To be very clear, for a single reason that I already laid out, which is LiveRamp technology is neutral by a sense. It's not like it's a problem for any 1 of them. Now I know it's a bit frustrating, but we can't say anymore anything further at this stage until we are closing the operation, which hopefully will be before the end of the year. Next question because we're very late. Thank you very much .

The next question is from Julien Roch of Barclays. .

Yes. no, Jean-Michel Gala. A quick 1 and 2 strategic one. First 1 is how much was production in the first half as a percentage of total? And how much was production organic -- and then IT consulting growth has slowed from 6%, 7% 2% to 3% now. Looking at share prices, the market believes that AI will take that goes even lower. So why is the market wrong? Why is employing 20,000 IT consulting -- a consultant a good thing as a stand-alone contribution? And lastly, can you help us measure progress in moving from time and material model, which I believe is 85% of your net sales to a new model based on either output, AdCom, subscription, et cetera. .

We're going to take it the other way around. So Laurie, you start with the first 1 and then I'll go to the second one. .

Yes. Just on production, it's doing really well. I mean, in Q2, we are very high single digit in terms of organic growth. And the share of the intelligent creativity is slightly above 25%, obviously, as it grew in the last year. was double digit last year and the year before. So we remain in the same territory, give or take, 1 percentage point. .

I love your second question, and I wish I had more time -- we are not an IT consulting firm. We have nothing to do with IT consumer film. The only thing that is in common with IT concept in sum is 13% of our revenue with Sapient and as I said, as for the other IT consulting firm, Sapient is suffering from a slowdown that is coming from our client just waiting and see in terms of CapEx spend. Now I don't want to give you any hope, but this is going to come back. I don't know when, but it's going to come back. because if you think that those clients won't have to invest CapEx in their technology, in their data in order to transform, you're wrong, it will happen. Now when I don't know. And the good news for us is that it's only 13% of our business. But to come back on your question, when I'm saying that we are not an IT company, is that the core of our business is marketing transformation. It's about media, creative, data and technology, getting together to transform the marketing model of our clients. And the reason why we are growing so fast at the moment and distancing ourselves from our peers is that AI has totally revolutionized the way we do marketing. And because we have been investing in third-party data in tech infrastructure with Sapient in this case, and the best media and creative capabilities, we are able to go to our clients and tell them, yes, the world is very complex. Yes, AI is difficult to scale. Yes, you have a lot of pressure because you have to increase your bottom line and your top line together. But today, by putting identity at the core with Epsilon by modernizing your mainframe with Epsilon by activating this highly complex media ecosystem with our media activities from commerce to pain media, to influencers, to CRM and by producing content that will work for human and for machine, we are able to actually increase your sales and reduce your costs. And I think you were there in Canada, we had 2 of the biggest CMO in the world that we won last year that came on stage in front of 350 clients and 100 of you guys and showed up what it means. So to be very clear, Sapient is a competitor of those IT consulting firms. It is suffering as they do at the moment but what they bring within Publicis for us to really win in marketing transformation is what is making the difference and actually allowing us despite all the tailwinds to deliver 6.5% of growth on what is 87% of our business on a margin that is only improving. .

So Julian, a few comments on remuneration models and what we are observing. The first is on the so-called full outcome-based model, I mean, it remains fairly limited, and we have not seen any significant evolution recently. The second, I think you asked the question sometime before on SaaS also remained fairly marginal. -- and at less than 1% of our group net revenue and it's primarily sitting at Epsilon. The third part is, as you described, the overwhelming majority of our range from head count base to time and materials, more specifically at Publicis Sapient. But all of them include some variable elements usually under the form of bonuses analysis. And -- but that's for a limited portion of the total remuneration. And if you look at this variable portion based on those predetermined they represent roughly 10% on average of our total remuneration for our existing contracts. All right. Quick last 1 before we wrap up, I guess, because we're late

The last question is from Christophe Cherblanc, Bernstein.

The last question, which is on -- so I don't think I have any recollection of personnel cost improving by 110 basis points. So was there any benefit from your India platform? I'm asking the question because some India-based company has mentioned FX tailwind, bearing in mind that the local currency has collapsed. .

I wouldn't qualify this as offshoring sort of benefits for the most part. I think we've driven offshoring quite a lot in the few years already. I go back to what I said earlier, which is definitely a scalability benefit of the recruitment that we had in 2025 the AI productivity initiative that are starting to scale up and there's obviously investment attached to it. And that's where you see the rebalancing from personnel costs into tech costs and G&A increase -- and then we've had some adjustments, normal adjustment on the business, including at Publicis Sapient, given the top line performance that has been softer. So that's normal course of business, if you will. But we are definitely planning on a lower personnel cost number for the lending this year.

Yes. I wish actually more question on that. So thank you, Christoph, because what we delivered on the margin and on the cash flow, by the way, is pretty exceptional because, of course, the headwinds we are seeing on a geopolitical level didn't help, but we are able to overperform also on that. Sorry, we have been a bit long. So just a few words in conclusion. Hopefully, you see that our H1 performance confirm what we have consistently demonstrated over the last several years and consistency matter. We are delivering faster growth than the industry. We are winning market share, which shows the strength of our model, and we are actually widening the gap with competition. We are expanding margin. We talk briefly about that and generating strong cash flow while we continue to invest ahead of our peers in AI, data and people. And that's very important for us. We talked a lot about that in Q1, but our ability to continue to invest in people and in capabilities thanks actually to our organization, for people and to our balance sheet for capabilities make a big difference. It's a tough context out there, and we are confident not only to raise our guidance for -- but more importantly, we are confident in our abilities to sustain a superior growth rates and create value in the long term. That was your question about 2027. If I were to sum up, I would say that beyond a strong quarter, we are making the demonstration that AI is accelerating the competitive advantages that we have been building for nearly 10 years now. I will actually say more because it started with Maurice vision. So again, thank you for joining. I have to say it, but sorry for all the English and French football fan on the call, -- it has been a rough week. I'd love to go to bed early before the earnings, but I've been suffering with many of you -- and I guess we will see you on the PicoSurday. Hopefully, you can have a bit of time with you on your family to rest in the coming months, but I'm sure we'll meet soon. So Mercie Boco, and have a good day. Thank you very much. .

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, good morning, and welcome. We're very pleased together with Élisabeth Badinter, Maurice Lévy and all Board members to welcome you to our general meeting. Thank you for being present in person today. Delighted to interact with you on the highlights of 2025, also our excellent results. As you know, as you've just seen, Publicis celebrated its centenary in 2026. This film illustrates the essence of Publicis' ability to anticipate the major changes of our industry, whether crisis embrace technological revolutions, constantly reinvented itself whilst remaining true to our values.

At Publicis, we've always had 2 priorities, our people and our clients. Thanks to our growth model driven today by artificial intelligence, we're beginning our second century stronger than ever. We're now going to form the bureau meeting. As Chairman and CEO, I'll chair this meeting, propose your point as scrutineers, Élisabeth Badinter, Madam Sophie present in the room who've agreed to accept this function. Madam Céline Fronval, Legal Counsel, will act as meeting Secretary. Madam Matta will support in the second room, shareholders in the second room will follow the meeting, ask questions and vote from their seat.

Meeting is webcast live and available on the group website. Here is the agenda of our meeting on screen. As a customary, I won't read the documents that we already made available and put on our website. I formally declare the meeting open and give the floor to Madame Céline Fronval.

Thank you, Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. The seed indicates that shareholders present, represented or voting by correspondents hold 199,342,142 shares on the 249,707 shares making up the capital with voting rights and represent 219,250,291. Consequently, the meeting is correyted of shares with voting rights for the ordinary meeting, that's 49,941,588, 1/4 of the shares with voting right for the extraordinary general meeting that is to say, 62,426,935 shares. The meeting can therefore deliberate validly as an ordinary and extraordinary meeting.

All the documents required by law are placed on the desk of this meeting. Let me add that the Board proposed the addition of resolution concerning the appointment of Madame Jaime Teevan as an independent director information pertaining to that resolution were made public on our website by press release. This resolution will be the subject of a detailed presentation during the meeting.

That's it for me, Chairman.

Thank you, Celine. We will now move to the moment that you all been waiting for, especially those of you who are here in person, the speech of our Emeritus Chairman, my boss, will now deliver.

Really here at the lectern for such a moment all the more I did not think for 1 moment that I would still be around to talk to you about the centenary of Publicis. It's the sole purpose of my intervention. And you saw quite an extraordinary fill made, thanks to AI and gives a taste of what Publicis can do. And I have to say that it's extremely difficult in a few minutes to summarize 100 years of history, 100 years of boldness, of ideas and success. And then, I have to say that I was extraordinarily fortunate and some emotion to have shared just over half of those 100 years at Publicis.

I thank Élisabeth Badinter for allowing me to share with you few fragments of this history of Publicis, and it's truly an outstanding founder, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, which nothing would have been possible. I was fortunate enough to spend 25 years at his side learning. With such a teacher, I was never bored for a moment. Marcel was very human and could be absolutely charming. And he wanted everyone to live up to his exacting standard. He loved advertising ideas, innovations and making his clients when is clients were always in the #1. So I think we've kept that and after he was gone even further on that front.

He gave this business its credentials and never compromised on its values. His life was novel. You saw some excerpts. He left school at 14 to sell furniture in his father's store. He wanted to make advertising his job and his father didn't believe in that for a moment. As you saw in the film, advertising is hot air. It's just wind, and Marcel says, well, it's thanks to wind that wind mills turn, he found Publicis at the age of 20. Today, we'd call it a startup. He invented ads as we know it still today, great many innovations over the years, a flurry of advertising ideas, the creation of commercial radio whose format still works to this date.

Innovation is at the heart of everything, the slogan, the jingle, the introduction of market surveys or even opinion polls. In 1940s you saw in the film, when the German troops entered Paris, he doesn't hesitate for a second. He scopes radio city shuts down this company joins the resistant and later on general Dega in London. After the war, thanks to boundless creativity with fizzing innovations, success will be there. He achieved his dream of being right up there at the top of the Chanels, open the drugstore that will soon become iconic.

Our first encounter goes back to the 2nd of March 1971, many of you were not born there or Arthur was probably only just born, and it was a medical encounter, but it actually got off to a very bad start because I wasn't able to articulate a single word. I was petrified to find myself in the presence of the pope of publicity as he was known. It was an incredible setting, valuable furniture, masterpiece works, was unable to speak what he was able to break the eyes, asking me questions about the only thing I can talk about today, no more today as it happens at computer science. They're with passion, I sketch out a future and a discussion occurred between 2 passionate men at the end of the meeting by saying young man you'll run this company. Of course, I didn't fully believe it, my wife even less. I think we unfortunately, the devastating fire that burnt everything and could have destroyed Publicis on the evening of 27th of February 1972. A crowd was amassed in front of our building that was on fire. Marcel was there watching stoically for destroying his building, the dream of his life.

It was impressive to see how much he resisted historically and seeing how the flames were in gulfing. The building I was really, they're just almost by can I'm very soon worried for my team who were working shift that I read in those days, we really did work. I managed to get into the building right in the dark of night, the stifling smoke and with the burning ambers and wading through the water.

In fact, everything that wasn't destroyed by fire was destroyed by -- I saw the sorry sight of the destruction of everything we built and then driven by some intuition, I decided to rescue everything that hadn't burnt in the hope that it would hope to restart the company, which was the case. Marcel entrusted me with the put the company to rights after the trauma and the damage created by the fire and at the age of 33 to run the agencies in France.

United by passion the taste to win back business, the urge to prove to all that Publicis is open for business, we embarked on a frenetic race for growth in all those who thought we were dead, and there were many, were really given the live by the win of many accounts and a rich crop of the -- following decades were hectic times, rich in innovation, surprises and innovation. We saw the advent of triumphant TV, digital revolution, social media, data, AI, video conferences. Who would have thought that 1 day we would create hands in our slippers in front of a wet camp. First passing of the baton occurred in Marcel appointed me President of PBG was a tremendous honor. It was the agency that we created from which everything occurred.

I didn't, of course, have time to relish such an honor that it was already time to fight to keep our accounts that were attacked internationally. A few years later in 1987, Marcel Betalancher decided to entrust me with the reins of the group. My first decision is the international strengthening of Publicis with the encouragement, I have to say, rather doubtful of the founder who nevertheless had that great quality gave me a freehand. I said about building our global future whilst keeping an eye on all technological developments. And Publicis became at the beginning of the 1990s, the first webpage agency in France.

Last Marcell passed away in 1996. His daughter Bunte assumes the Chair of the Supervisory Board. And together, we formed a singular couple between the left wing philosopher, right of feminist and the entree manager for the market economy, and we continued the work on the founder by taking it ever higher and becoming a global company. The biggest challenge was to impose a French agency in this Anglo-Saxon world. We manage that through frenetic acquisitions by cultivating our difference rather than raising success was there with the acquisitions of Sachi and Sachi in 2000 and then after 9/11, with its dual Leon. And lastly, the masterful cool of Digitas, when nobody believed in digital after the bursting of the dotcom bubble. Each of these acquisitions with a risky gamble.

At this stage, I'd like to emphasize the key essential role of Élisabeth Badinter who never saw of her share ownership in terms of assets, but as the heritage of a company that needed to be preserved, grow and prosper for the good of all. This was done with talent and Publicis become a company that was apart from the others, family, profoundly, French and global, also paradoxical. How can a company, an advertising company born in France in a country that is a weiry of advertising and anti-capitalist become such a company under the leadership of Arthur Sadoun became #1 in the world. I don't believe the answer lies in any form of reasoning or logic or AI. No, because Publicis is a company whose energy has its roots in the fuel of passion that gives us the boldness of change and the acquisition of Sapient and then following that in 2015, the intuition of Power of One that put us out in the front, thanks to an innovative model that is now the template of the industry.

Marcel ran the company for 60 years and made this fine company, the flagship of French advertising. I had the honor of leading it for 30 years in building the new Publicis global, digital and tech. And then the time came to handover has chosen to lead the change and grow the group. And the tandem that we found with Élisabeth became a trident shareholder custodian of the temple. Élisabeth watches over the direction of the group and the independence as for me, I become a bit of help where I can. Some services here and there, some minor things. And Arthur Sadoun propels the company with new powerful energy. The acquisition of Epsilon with the country leaders complete the profile of the group that emerges as the global #1 without losing any of its values. The ordeal suffered by Arthur with his cancer shows the fragility of life his strength of character. And well, now we must continue -- we must quite simply continue to dream to invent today and to surpass ourselves. Publicis will be still and ever reinvented tomorrow, such as with this bold acquisition of LiveRamp, the places of harder the Galaxy of the future. But with the fair emotions and the share of humanity that belongs only to us because, yes, AI will be at the heart of tomorrow's world, but a Publicis with heart today. I'd simply like to say thank you. Thank you to our clients for their trust. Thank you to all our value and team. Thanks to you, shareholders, who've supported us for so long with your fateful support, thanks to Elizabeth to our vigilant Board. And thanks to our high with you. We'll write new glorious pages. Thank you.

Thank you very much for activity report of the fiscal year 2025 and our outlook for 2026, and I'd like to begin by you with the highlights. They are not on the screen, never mind. And it's a lag, but we will manage. Good news, we are the industry leader for the sixth consecutive year. We have this mantra every year, but we never tire of it. We're #1 for net revenue, organic growth, operating margin, new business, market capitalization despite being bought up by Omnicam and PSG as well. Let's dig down a little bit one key indicator is organic growth in our industry. This testifies to the health and the momentum of the group, 5.6% in 2025, much better than Omnicom and better than WPP, the former leader. And this shows the fragility of companies in the sector and the need to gain market shares.

We have a unique revenue mix, connected media, 60% of our revenue and growing fast, 26% for intelligent creativity of middle single-digit growth and technology 14%, almost flat. One thing that's interesting to look at is our operating margin that's better than competitors. It's a historic high 18.2%. But we've got value shared well with average wage increase of close to 7% after 6.5% in 2024 and bonus pool and variable remuneration, which is the leading level for the industry and represents close to 4% of net revenue because we want our workforce to benefit from our success and feel truly involved.

We're #1 for new business and by far, new business billings, you can see here, and whether it be media or creation and new business ranking once again for the sixth year in a row, we come first as defined by the 7 leading rating agencies. And let's take a look at a little film about our success in 2025.

A 100 years ago Marcel created Publicis. In 2026 continues its good performance financially with nonfinancial none in the industry, with ESG ratings for the last 6 years because we want to make the difference in 3 areas, the environment, social equity and health. Our environmental commitments in line with the Paris agreement of 1.5 degrees scenario. And also, we are the owning group to have medium- and long-term reduction objectives to reduce our carbon footprint and validated by STI. 80% of renewables for 2030, we hope to get to 100%, thanks to proprietary tools like AI and other teams can help our clients in less energy and departmental transition.

We have compulsory training for all of our staff, and we have impact of program. Our conviction is that everybody of 115,000 people must help the board had to save opportunities. We open the doors of our agencies to trade the new generation, and we continue to invest in our talents, thanks to our internal platform. We have the best tools meaningful development and talent growth. Generative AI is changing a paradigm. Business, we can scale up continuously inventing publicity and advocating for gender equality. We have the women forum for the economy and society in the last 20 years, which promotes the contribution of women to the economy and society.

This is an international platform for quality. We bring together leaders, universities. Publicis we got to our objective of 46.5% of women in depositions in the company in 2025. He joined various networks like the which are open to all. Our third pillar is health. In a world where 1 person in 2 is likely to get cancer, we need to change the approach -- the serious illness is a good deal for everybody, the person themselves and the family. We advocate for working with cancer to remove stigma of working with cancer with 500 companies who joined this movement. We have made commitments for the people that affected to provide security to accompany them, to support and provide care for them.

Since 2026, international study shows that health will improve if the workplace is right, if you have supportive workplace, then they will do better. Publicis was designated best company 2026 for working with cancer. For us, it was making the difference means moving into the new sanitary differently with the positive impact for our workforce society and the environment. Thank you very much indeed, and thanks to our teams.

And now we are going to look for the financial details for 2025. Net income was EUR 14.5 billion that's up by 0.6% in organic growth and 4.2% reported growth. The operating margin EUR 2.6 billion. That's up 5.1%. Our free cash flow before working capital requirement variation reached EUR 2 billion for the first time as compared to EUR 1.8 billion in 2024. We saw an active policy of acquisitions together with an unfavorable development of the dollar. This led to a slight increase in our net debt on average EUR 1 billion.

Operating margin has increased slightly. It's at a record level of 18.2% in 2025. This is the highest of the industry. As I said, this is a historical performance. And at the same time, we continue to invest in talent with more than 5,000 net recruits, a bonus pool, which is the highest level of the industry and significant investment of EUR 150 million in artificial intelligence, that's up 15% compared to 2024.

Once again, the group has demonstrated its ability to generate good cash flow of more than EUR 2 billion in 2025, up to EUR 100 million compared to the previous year, thanks to a careful management of payments, change in WCR remained under control despite sustained growth of our business. We maintained targeted acquisitions, EUR 700 million in 2025. That's -- it's that you have to add earn-outs captive and low terministance.

Our net cash situation fell slightly by EUR 227,000 in 2025. The macroeconomic context is uncertain and yet our situation is very sound. On average, net debt was EUR 971 million. That's EUR 400 million up, of which EUR 300 million is related to the negative currency translation effect because of the dollar Net financial debt at year-end, EUR 548 million. And so rating agencies, S&P and Moody's confirmed our credit rating at the beginning of this year on the basis of those figures.

Thanks to those outstanding 2025 results, we are suggesting we pay out a dividend of EUR 3.4 this year. That's an increase of 4.2% as compared to 2023. The distribution rate is 50.1%. That's the highest level of the industry. And we have chosen this year once again to pay out all of the dividend in cash, so EUR 3.75. Just to wind up, these are excellent results, but there's also something else that's very dear to our heart and at the heart of Publicis, it's the engine of our growth. It's the fuel of our company. And the agency was recognized for the second as the best agency in the world that can and founded by lane. We are very proud of this and proud of all of our teams. What's amazing at Publicis can say is that they have huge campaigns with accounts, which changed the trajectory of the brands. And we're going to show you a film that we made for AXA to illustrate this.

[Presentation]

Thank you very much and cherry on the cake. According to the Times, Publicis is 1 of the 100 most influential companies in the world. Maurice and I love this because this puts us alongside Anthropic, Meta, NVIDIA. Obviously, our market value is not the same, but it certainly puts us in the right league and its excellent recognition in the U.S.

The 2026 outlook now, 2026 is a year of major challenges. When I showed Maurice this chart, he said, you say this every year. And I had to admit that that's true, but I said it's particularly true this year. The macroeconomic climate is tough. We have many fears and uncertainties surrounding the rise of artificial intelligence that weigh on our ratings. And we have a completely transformed competitive landscape, #3 bought #2, et cetera. All of this is having an impact on our clients.

The good news is that we got off to a good start with organic revenue growth in Q1 that was 6.4%, and net revenue growth, 4.5%, and barbell, we can confirm all of the 2026 guidance objectives despite the uncertain macroeconomic context. Net revenue organic growth of 4% to 5% with a very solid floor, 4%. We're sure of doing that. We hope to do better, and we are predicting a slight improvement in Q2, which is great, especially in this context. Operating margin rate, slight improvement and free cash flow of more than EUR 2.1 billion. So all of that looks pretty good given the climate.

And by way of conclusion, I'd like to come back to the 3 reasons for our confidence in our ability to continue delivering objectives and to outperform in 2026 and beyond. As Maurice has said, and this is in the genes of Publicis and our founder always said this, we're 100% focused on clients. That may sound like a very simple message, but it makes all the difference. Our transformation is behind us. At a given point in time, it was difficult. We restructured. We took bold decisions with Epsilon, for instance, when growth wasn't what was expected, but we have turned out to be right. That was the vision of, the same at the Power of One.

We said we need to simplify structures and moist in 2014, 2015, initiated the Power of One, and we were pioneers with AI first movers with Marcel. This means that we have won market shares and we're #1 position in the media billings in the U.S. despite the fact that the leading American for port of the second one. And that counts is a market where scale counts. We move into the coming on in China, the 2 main markets are China and the U.S. So we are well ahead of others in new business, and we will continue to outperform in 2026.

If you look at consensus reports with the margin that continues to improve, and we continue to forge ahead and out distance rivals. And the second message I want to get across is that artificial intelligence is a driver of growth and profitability for Publicis. Some people are skeptical and have doubts about that. There's a debate about AI losers and AI winners. But I would like to make one point quite clear, and that is that we are the winners. This is not just words, hollow rhetoric. If you look at the last 3 years, with the arrival of GenAI, we have got growth of 20%. We've added EUR 2.3 billion in additional revenue. We've accelerated our difference with the rest of competition because we were first movers first because we've moved fast and we focus on our clients. The same is true for margin. We launched Marcell, our AI platform in 2017. And since EBITDA has increased twofold, and we've added 270 basis points to our margins. We're not going to stop there. We're going to continue to accelerate growth, thanks to our clients because AI helps to identify new consumers for them.

It helps to create more intelligence and better adapted content and to do better every day. And we're going to be using artificial intelligence to improve intrinsic Publicis performance. Thanks to agentification of operations.

And the third reason that we are confident is because there is a size effect in our favor. There's less competition. I'm talking about the big competitors. There were 4. There's only 3 now. So we have reduced the competitive field, and we continue to invest in new addressable markets that are growing with influencers, with trade, with sport. And as Maurice as said, we are going to continue with this -- with the LiveRamp. LiveRamp Is a global platform, data collaboration so that companies can unify, manage and activate their data the whole of their digital ecosystem in a completely secure manner because that's what our clients expect. And it's an acquisition that is worth about EUR 1.8 billion enterprise value. It's growing fast. 13% on average annual net revenue growth over the last 5 years, good operating margin and which will be accretive to the group's headline EPS just beginning, we need to get approval for LiveRamp for shareholders, and we need to get regulatory approvals. We hope to be able to close by year-end 2026.

Once finalized, there are 3 major key advantages our company. First of all, it will mean that we have new key expertise that we can make available to clients. Data co-creation, it has to be understood that AI without data is worthless because AI is huge sources of data that speak to other sources of data. 93% of our clients today can't make the most of AI because they don't have the right data. With LiveRamp, we'll be able to use their data to aggregate it to organize it to aggregate with other sources of data in a secure environment to get -- to give them a competitive advantage. We always think in terms of how is this going to help the clients, how will it help them to have a competitive edge.

The second point is really fits into our growth model. Epsilon, Sapient and Marcel, we are now building a new model increasingly innovative with we hope have a stronger growth. And this brings me to the third point. We think that LiveRamp will help us to continue our trajectory that we started with Epsilon. Most of you will remember in 2019, when we made that gamble that was a bet, and it's in the genes of Publicis, as Maurice told you, we have always invested in the best talents on the market and in innovations that help our clients to grow and to progress. And this has always helped Publicis itself. Since 2019, when we bought up Epsilon, our net revenue increased by almost 50%. Our operating margin almost 60% headline diluted EPS by 50%, dividend per share by 226%, total shareholder return since 2019 of 226% -- 158%, sorry.

And this brings me to the end of my presentation. It remains for me to thank you shareholders for believing with us, standing by us. I'd also like to thank our clients who are maybe not in the room but may be listening, but it's the confidence and trust of our clients that supports Publicis. It's easy to stand here and present these outstanding results, especially compared to the rest of the industry. But on a day-to-day basis, it's a tough market for our workforce, for our teams, who work unstintingly to make sure the company does well. I'd like to thank the Board, especially Élisabeth Badinter for unfailing support that makes all the difference since I was fortunate enough to be CEO of the group. And of course, it goes without saying almost I would like to thank Maurice Lévy.

Maurice, I have been fortunate enough to work with you for 20 years. I learn something new every day. And it occurred to me that you worked alongside Marcel for 25 years. I trust that we will do better than that and work longer together. Thank you for always being by my side, always being there for me. Everybody in the room would agree, you are always there for us, for our clients. We are very fortunate. Thank you very much indeed.

We're now going to move to the reports Board of Directors and of committees for 2025. And before I hand over to the chairs of the committees, I suggest we watch a short video on the functioning and the word of your board in 2025.

As of 31st December, 2025, we have 13 members on the Board with 45% of 45% of women and 73% of that were not French nationals. In 2025, the Board in times with attendance rate of 97%. The Lead Director, Mr. Kudelski also contained 2 meetings with independent directors only.

To support in its work, the Board is supported by 4 specialist committees, the committees of audit and financial risks, shared by Mr. Tanglin, supported by permanent system. Mrs. Badinter, the Nomination Committee. The Remuneration Committee chaired by Ms. Antonella Mei-Pochtler supported by permanent expert Mr. Cicurel. The strategic environment on the Social Committee chaired by Ms. Josee Caves. All in all, 60 meetings and 2 common sessions between the different committees in 2025.

Throughout the year, the Board paid good attention to the activities and the results of the group to improve the financial and corporate statements of 2025, reviewed the proposed dividend of EUR 3.75. In terms of governance, the Board reviewed the membership of the Board. It closely looked at the appointment of members in the search for new members in order to strengthen its independence.

Besides the Board worked on the strategic and sustainability priorities to also devoted its annual seminar to AI, reviewed the cybersecurity systems, looked at the main mergers and acquisitions, operations, looked at climate change, renewable energy challenges. The Board also consulted all questions and comments by investors and shareholders and included them in its work.

Like every year, it reviewed the main takeaways of the general meeting of the previous years. Thank you very much.

Now over to Mr. Tumble who will be addressing you for the very first time to present the activity report of the Audit and Financial Risk Committee of which he took Chairmanship last May. Over to you, Tom.

Thank you, Arthur. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders on the 27th of May 2025, I succeeded Mr. Jean Charest as Chair of this committee. I would like to warmly thank my predecessor for his contribution during his chairmanship and for green to continue participating in our work. As every year, the committee reviewed the group's statutory and consolidated financial statements that will be submitted for your approval under the first and second resolutions.

The committee examined the accounting methods and analyze the cash position. The committee ensured the independence of the statutory auditors and the proper conduct of their missions. It reviewed and approved the fees for additional assignments, interested with the auditors, who presented their methodology, the scope of the audits and detailed work to the committee. The main disputes, which are limited in number relative to the group's size as well as ongoing investigations are presented at each meeting.

The committee informed the Board of the results, the evaluation procedure for agreements entered into by Publicis Group S.A. that cover routine transactions conducted and normal conditions. The committee monitored the evolution of the group's internal accounting and financial system. This system is based on a quarterly self-assessment process and on dedicated teams that are responsible for testing the effectiveness of key checks.

The conclusion is that the level of internal audit for the 2025 financial year is deemed satisfactory. The group's Internal Audit Department executed the 2025 audit plan, exceeding the set objectives. The committee approved the 2026 internal audit plan and closely monitors the implementation of the recommendations. In April 2026, the certification of the internal audit department, which has been regularly obtained since 2017, was renewed for 3 years by the French Institute of External and Internal Audit. This recognition attests to the sustained quality of Publicis' internal audit, which the committee welcomes.

The committee is regularly informed of alerts, fraud and attempted fraud reported to the group. A summary of anticorruption checks identified within the agencies is presented semiannually in accordance with the law. No cases of proven corruption have been identified. Your committee reviewed financial risks, both actual and potential as well as off balance sheet commitment. It examined the group cybersecurity framework in collaboration with members of the strategic environmental and social committee. The committee took note of the group's insurance policy.

Finally, your committee monitored the results and mechanisms implemented for the first sustainability reporting within the group. It reviewed the work of the auditor responsible for certifying the sustainability information for the 2024 financial year. It examined the conclusions related to the update of the double materiality matrix as well as the analysis of the most significant IROs, impacts, risks and opportunities for the company.

It also reviewed the scope of the 2025 sustainability audits. The update of the group's climate risk mapping and the revision of the climate transition plan with a new climate trajectory that will be submitted to the SBCI in 2026. Ms. Marie Kravis, the Chair of the Strategic Environmental and Social Committee, will provide further details on this shortly.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much indeed. I now hand over to Ms. Élisabeth Badinter, the Chair of the Nomination Committee, who's going to be presenting the work of the committee in 2025.

Thank you, Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, as Chair of the Nomination Committee, I shall now report on the work of this committee. The committee reviewed the membership of the Board and of its committees and issued several recommendations. In just a moment, I shall present the proposed evolutions relative to the membership of your Board that will be put today to your approval.

As for every year, the committee has reviewed the level of independence of Board members against the MEDEF codes criteria. Last, the committee carried out in-depth work on the succession plans and more specifically on the succession plan for this year taking into account both the needs of the group and the expectations expressed by our stakeholders. The Chief Executive Officer was involved in this work in compliance with criteria that ensure the independence of the committee's decision. The Lead Director ensured the smooth conduct, objectivity and quality of this process.

Now, let me address the changes that we propose today. Following this general meeting, the terms of Mr. Simon Baratte and Mr. Tidjane as Directors will expire. Simon Baratte has decided not to request the renewal of his term, which therefore will expire at the end of this meeting. On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, I'd like to express to him all our thanks for his constant involvement and for his contribution to the development of the governance of group Publicis over the last 26 years.

The nomination committee proposed to the Board, the appointment of Mr. Bajan Barateiro as Director to succeed him for a duration of 4 years. that is until the general meeting that will deliberate on the financial statements for the year ended on December 31, 2029. This proposal follows the group's governance approach, which seeks to preserve the foundation of our core values in the best interest of employees, shareholders and all stakeholders.

Bajan Barateiro did most of his career spent most of his career within the outlets and agencies of Publicis that he joined in 1995. He has developed recognized expertise in media and communication, specifically in the field of cinema advertising. His knowledge of the group and his deep experience of this industry make him the natural and legitimate candidate to serve on your board. Let me now hand over to him so that he can introduce himself directly to you.

Good morning to all. First of all, I'd like to thank the Board for its trust, particularly Maurice Lévy and Arthur Sadoun. I've known Arthur Sadoun for a number of years already as we went to school together. Maurice Lévy, of course, to all of us is an authority. He told me a lot. I don't feel make it short. Most of it has been said. I spent most of my career at Publicis. So I know this company fairly well. I have expertise in the media advertising agencies, especially cinema advertising in all its forms, in theaters or in the digital networks today. There's another activity, which hasn't been mentioned, tennis, which is quite hot at the moment, but that's for ones, of course. The Italian teams or the Italian players will probably shine at the end of the week. Rest assured that I will strive to defend the interest of all stakeholders, and I will do my level best to ensure that our performance can remain as outstanding as it has been in the last years.

Thank you very much for your trust. You can count on me.

Thank you, Baijan. As regards the directorship of Mr. Tidjane, the committee has recommended its his reappointment for 4 years, that is until the general meeting that will be called upon to deliberate on the financial statements for the year ended on December 31, 2029. Mr. Tidjane contributes to the Board's recognized expertise in financial governance and risk management aspects, expertise that he has gained throughout a distinguished international career in the private and public sectors. His in-depth knowledge of Asian and African markets as well as his experience within major financial institutions and international organizations are major assets for the Board, specifically as regards to the assessment of strategic challenges and for the group's investment decisions. His reappointment on the Board will enable us to benefit further from his essential perspective and it's valuable contribution to the quality of our governance.

Unfortunately, Mr. Tidjane Thiam could not be with us today. but he wanted to personally address you with a short video message. We're going to play it now.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, good morning. 4 years ago, you granted me your trust by pointing me as director. And I'd like to thank you for this. This term was extremely rewarding as far as I'm concerned. It was very important for me to contribute to the work of the Board, especially on the Audit and Financial Risk Committee and on the Strategic Environmental and Solution Committee. I used my international experience that I gained in consultants in banking.

In the last years, I've been able to witness the de-transformation of Publicis, the uniqueness and strength of our model. Today, I'd like to continue this commitment. Therefore, I'd like to apply for the renewal of my term. I'd like to thank Mrs. Élisabeth Badinter as well as members of the Nomination Committee and of the Board for their trust. If you place, again, your trust in me for the next 4 years, rest assured that it will be fully involved to work for Publicis scope and for all its stakeholders. Thank you very much indeed.

We do hope that you will approve these proposals -- apologies, I made a mistake. I skipped the page apparently. Apologies. Finally, just 1 word about the additional resolution that will be put to your approval today. With the support of the Nomination Committee, the Board of Directors has been fully committed to strengthening the independence of your Board and has pledged to appoint a new independent director before the end of 2026.

Work was initiated as early as late 2024 to identify the profiles that would have recognized expertise in artificial intelligence and in technologies, which are strategic importance for the group. In the last days, this work has led to the selection of a highly qualified candidate, Ms. Jaime Teevan. She's the Chief Scientist and Technical Fellow at Microsoft. She's a recognized figure for our work in artificial intelligence. Thus, a resolution by -- was added by the Board of Directors in order to propose the nomination of Ms. Jaimie Teevan. This will allow us to strengthen the independence of the Board, its AI expertise and to reach perfect gender diversity.

Let us now discover Ms. Teevan with a short video.

[Foreign Language] and thank you to the Board and shareholders for considering my candidacy. My name is Jaimie Teevan, and I'm Chief Scientist and Technical Fellow at Microsoft, where I focus on how advances in AI improve how people work, create and collaborate. What draws me to Publicis is the company's leadership in combining creativity, data and emerging technology at a global scale.

If elected, I would bring our perspective grounded in state-of-the-art technology, responsible innovation and long-term value creation while supporting the Board in its oversight of strategy and risk. As Publicis enters its second century, I would be honored to contribute to its long tradition of reinvention and help shape what comes next.

Thank you.

We do hope that these proposals will receive your approval. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. I'll just add a few words. We're absolutely delighted of the arrival of Jaimie on the Board with what she will bring a great deal. She knows AI inside and out in companies most in vogue at the cutting edge of AI, and it's going to be a very useful adjunct to our Board. We're very pleased to welcome Baja. We were at schooled together a year old Natural Authority of me. I'm sure you'll preserve that. We're delighted. And Baja said, we need the right balance between people and Publicis. We want to remain true to our value is 1 of the reasons why we going from strength to strength. And we like Jaimie, who will take us on new routes, great good balance.

Lastly, thanks to Simon because his role on the Board was key. You need to know that Simon great activities in the U.S., not going to talk about it to do doing things that are truly impactful. And when he can't be present, he's up at 2 a.m., very active, very challenging, did a great job. And personally said, I got here 20 years ago. Baja more part of the people. We welcome me help it to grow to understand better the Publicis. Help me a great deal to understand Maurice Levy, not always easy. And I'm particularly grateful to Simon today. Now, Santos, it's customary, Secretary of the meeting will read the resolution. Celine?

Thank you, chairman. So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to read to you the motion for a new resolution appointment of Madame Jaimie Teevan as Independent Director. This resolution will be to the vote after resolution 6 under the title Resolution 8. So resolution appointment of Madame Jaimie Teevan Director the AGM on a quorum basis for ordinary meetings, proposes that you appoint following this meeting. Madam Jaimie Teevan as Director for a 4-year term until the end of the ordinary meetings that will approve the accounts of 2029.

Madam Jaimie Teevan has indicated she accept this appointment excise, no duty or any measure preventing exercising this position. Thank you.

If you've got any questions regarding this appointment, I advice you to put those during the Q&A session later on.

Let's move on with our agenda and hand over to Madame Antonella Mei-Pochtler of the Nominations Committee, who will give a report.

Thank you, Chairman, Ladies, gentlemen, 2025 for the Compensation Committee met on 5 occasions. It's work focus compensation of the Chair and CEO and Board members as well as provisions applicable to all employees. I'd like to say a word on the key points of the resolutions put to your votes. In respect, first of all is the compensation of Board members. The annual package on to EUR 1.5 million that you approved last year and the compensation package of directors remains unchanged.

Now, for directors, who have not yet taken up the duties at the 1st of January 2026, is proposed to calculate their compensation on a pro rata basis in accordance with the start or end date of their term. For Mr. Sadoun, for 2026, the Board proposes a revision of base compensation. No change is brought to the overall package or the performance criteria, given the disproportionate gap of the compensation of the CEO of Publicis with those of his direct competitors after a detailed analysis based on the lasting outperformance of your group, its sustained growth, the strategic transformation undertaking the internal team. The Board upon recommendation of the Compensation Committee proposes that you increase by 20% the annual fixed compensation of Mr. Arthur Sadoun that remained unchanged since 2022 and to increase it to EUR 140,4000.

You'll also be asked to approve the variable compensation of the Chairman and CEO for 2025 based on exacting criteria that are predetermined committee carefully scrutinize the attainment of the targets to be reached by Mr. Sadoun and issued the following the recommendations that allowed the Board to approve the total compensation of Mr. Sadoun. The max target of organic the group's revenue was exceeded. Publicis has exceeded all expectations in terms of growth. That maximum target of operating margin was also exceeded in respect of CSR, the impact and equity and fight against climate change targets were also exceeded.

Given the outstanding performance of the group in 2025, and the remarkable work of Mr. Sadoun, the Board proposes to pay him the maximum amount of his annual variable compensation. Thank you.

Thank you, Antonella. We're going to welcome Madam Marie-Jose Kravis, Chair of the Strategic Environment Social Committee, who'll deliver her report. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, the strategic environment, social committee is tasked with reviewing all aspects of the group strategy including its environmental and social commitments. 2025, we held 2 joint sessions with the Audit and Financial Risk Committee that allowed us to work together on updating the major risk map and the group's cybersecurity setup.

We also -- we're informed of a scenario planning exercise designed to assess the group capability to respond to extreme events. Feedback on the Ukraine-Russia conflict illustrated the group's resilience, its ability to use the crisis situation. Publicis demonstrated that its governance model has adapted and can operate in an unstable geopolitical setting.

Lastly, the committee was informed of the M&A policy undertaken since 2019, the key sectors, deals underway, the pace of acquisitions as well as the M&A plan for 2025. The committee was informed of the main actions implemented in the 3 areas of the vigilant plant, human rights, health and safety of individuals, the environment as well as risk tracking measures for the most serious items.

Regarding compliance, the committee reviewed the risk map of noncompliance and ethical breaches. No high risk was identified. The committee also discussed the new targets in terms of generic quality.

In terms of CSR and sustainability, the group reviewed the revision of the climate risk map incorporating 2 global warming scenarios. One, plus 4 degrees centigrade 1 plus 1.5 degrees. The work highlighted did not highlight any significant new risk for Publicis. We also reviewed the update of the double materiality analysis that showed no major variance between 2023 and '25. The committee also reviewed the international deployment of the program. No impact or a big impact of proprietary ecosystem there to change marketing and responsible and sustainability practice.

We track legal changes that occurred in 2025 regarding European directives on sustainability, reporting and the duty. I would like to share by sharing this visual that illustrates the change in the group's primate trajectory, the outstanding growth of the company sometimes masks efforts at reduction undertaken in the past few years. Since 2019, these emissions are down 11% in absolute terms when the group experienced a growth of 48% of its revenue. The carbon intensity per capita is down 33%, which clearly demonstrates that reduction actions were implemented. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Marie. A very big thank you for your ongoing support in the U.S., which is, of course, the #1 market that's extremely valuable to me.

Let's move now the Lead Director, Mr. Andre Kudelski, who is key for the quality of our governance. Over to you, Andre.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Arthur. During 2024 as independent Lead Director, I held regular and in-depth discussions with management and in particular on group governance matter. I met with the heads of the various corporate functions so as to discuss with them the key matters of topical interest to ensure close coordination between the work and the Board and the management teams.

As regards to the Board's work that was consulted for the preparation of each and every agenda and top part all meetings of the Board as well as those of the committees of which I am a member. Like last year, the assessment of the Board and its committees in respect of FY '25 was undertaken under my supervision. I will examine the questionnaire put to directors and discuss individually with those who so wish before reporting to the Board in early 2026. The conclusions of this assessment confer the smooth functioning of the Board and its committee, know situation regarding the risk of conflict of interest was addressed during the Board session over the past year.

Furthermore, I organized and led 2 executive sessions, reserved for only independent directors, whose conclusions were shared with all Board members. I was closely involved in the discussion on the succession plan of Chairman and CEO and of key executives, both in the Nominations Committee as well as beyond the formal governing bodies. I contributed to shareholder dialogue on matters pertaining to governance, was kept informed of the conclusions of meetings organized with certain institutional investors in the discharge of my duties. I reached the conclusion that the Board operates in a spirit of openness and rigor with a true balance between management and independent directors, the quality of this delay in my view, is a bedrock for good governance, serving the group's performance and sustainability. Thank you.

Thank you. We now move to the report of the auditors available on the group. KPMG up next.

Thank you, Chair, shareholders. It's a pleasure for me to present on behalf of the college of auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, the reports that we have drawn up for your attention for fiscal year closing 31st of December 2025. The reports refer to the annual accounts and the consolidated accounts, regulated agreements and resolutions relating to movements of capital. All of these reports have been made available for you and are included in the universal registration document 2025 and/or on the Internet side of the company.

And I would now like to summarize the main terms of those reports. Regarding our reports on the annual and consolidated accounts, which are the subject to the first and second resolutions, we certify that those accounts are addressed in an accurate and fair manner, relating to the accounting benchmarks and give a faithful reflection of the results, the financial situation and the assets of the company and the group at the end of fiscal year 2025.

Regarding the annual accounts of the company, we have no reservations, but we do have a technical comment relating to the application for the first time of a new regulation intended to modernize financial statements as of the 1st of January 2025. Within the frame of our mission, we pay particular attention to some key points of the audit, which we consider to be more significant and to help us form our opinion.

For the consolidated accounts, this is recognition of revenue a valuation of goodwill, accountancy and devaluation of provisions for risks and litigation, other provisions and possible liabilities. And for the annual accounts, it is the evaluation of holdings held by the company.

Regarding the fourth resolution of the shareholders meeting, we have drafted a report on regulated agreements. We affirm you that we have been informed of no authorized agreement reached during the past fiscal year, and therefore, not needed to be submitted to approval by the shareholder nor have we been informed of other agreements that might have continued during the fiscal year and negotiated beforehand.

Regarding the extraordinary part of the shareholders' meters, we have drafted 3 reports that relate to delegation to the Board of various issuances of ordinary shares or marketable securities. So that might have an impact on the capital of the company, and therefore, we ask you to vote on these. This is the issuance of ordinary shares or marketable securities with the maintenance or cancellation of preferential subscription rights as set out in Resolution 12 to 15 and then again, Resolution 17 to 19.

Issuance of ordinary shares or marketable securities for members of savings plan, this Resolution 20, and the issuance of ordinary shares or marketable securities with cancellation of preferential subscription right to benefit certain specific categories of beneficiaries as under Resolution 21. We have no observations to make on this subject. Some of the conditions of issuance are not yet known, and we will draft a supplementary report, if required, when these powers are availed off by your Board.

Finally, regarding the work on information relating to sustainability and taxonomy published by the company, we have issued a report relating to compliance with the process to determine information regarding sustainability in keeping with the European sustainability reporting standards, compliance with ESRS of the publication of this information in the management report and compliance with the taxonomy. We did not note any material error, omission or inconsistency relating to compliance with information published regarding sustainability. These are therefore compliant with the ESRS standards.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you very much indeed. This brings us to the end of the presentation.

We will move on to question-and-answer session. We have received a series of written questions, and we have answered those as in keeping with the usual provisions. The written questions and the answers have been published on the Internet site of Publicis Group under shareholders meeting. We are now available to answer any questions who would like to start off. We can't see you very well, but I can see a hand at the back there.

I'm retail shareholder. I'm very proud to be a shareholder of the #1 advertising agency worldwide, especially is a French company, your values are amazing, and you have a lot of passion and energy. And Warren Buffett, who's my mentor, would be delighted. I'm a bit disappointed with the share value on the markets over the last year. So I have a question to try and understand Publicis and your acquisition checklist. What are the 3 key criteria when you buy up a company?

I have another question, AI and Publicis, you said Publicis is a winner. But the clients are also winners, especially those who are well informed and inquisitive. What is the best way to convince even the shrewdest client to continue to use your services.

And a third question, Publicis and the rest of the world. In order to better understand the specificity of publishes, could you quote 1 or 2 services that you're the only ones to offer? And it'd be good for your publicity as well.

Thank you, and thank you to Viva Tech, who's the best tech firm in Paris.

Thank you very much indeed. Well, there's a lot in there. Let me begin with the first point. You're a bit disappointed by the share price, and so are we. But let's try and step back a little bit. If you look at share price, dividends or TSR over the last 6 or 7 years, we are doing best in the whole industry. And we're doing very well compared to the rest of the French Stock Exchange, the leading company's CAC. That said, it's frustrating, to be honest, it's very frustrating. We are outstanding in performance, and yet it's not fully recognized by the market. That's put it as bluntly as that who would have thought that we were to outgrow Accenture, for instance, many other agencies.

There are 2 factors behind this macroeconomic situation, of course. The drop in the dollar, that sort of goes hand in hand saw the figures. There's not much we can do about that for the time being. And then the perception that AI is going to have a negative impact. If I look back over the years, it's a bit similar to 2019. We had internal difficulties related to Meta, Google and the like. And we were able to demonstrate quarter-by-quarter that we could do better and outperform, and our share price rose sort. I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody does. But we are very confident about our capacity to continue to deliver growth and profits and continue to innovate. I'll come back to this and to gradually get financial markets to recognize our performance are at a high level compared to a few years back. That's the first point.

Acquisitions. I said this earlier on. One of the reasons I joined Publicis 20 years ago, maybe the main 1 will also the joy of working with Maurice Lévy, we are obsessed by what's coming next. Why? Because we want to remain independent, we want to remain strong in troubled times. We're always looking at what's going to come next. And the best way to succeed on that score is to have talent. We invest in talent. We are very proud of this. We recruit people. We increase salaries. We pay out bonuses.

Our competitors are firing thousands of people. It's a people first line of business, and it's our greatest asset. The future of AI, the men and women who are going to succeed to get it working better than in other firms. So we continue to invest in this, and we continue to invest in acquisitions. Three criteria when you have an acquisition, does this meet a client's need? Does it really help clients? Will it help them win? Second, is it does it fit with our strategy? Does it add another brick that gives more value within Publicis than if they're not in Publicis?

If you look at our acquisitions, you can see growth around 20%, Epsilon at 10%, it was less than 3% when we bought it. And it has to help improve our financial performance. It's the case with LiveRamp, and it's been the case with past acquisitions. AI and what we have that's unique for our clients, they really to maybe 3 pillars: our talent and creativity they bring and technology.

If you look at companies all over the world, the ones that are likely to succeed tomorrow. There are a lot of high-tech companies that are losing value at the moment, but those that will really succeed are the ones who have the best technology and the best talent to make sure that, that technology will work for our clients, and that's the great strength that as Publicis, we see -- we have been courageous in our investments in line with Maurice's vision in data, technology and that we have tools that our competitors don't have, but we've also got people in Publicis who know how to implement the know how to go out and look for new growth segments for our clients to invent the need of the future influence us for to have customized, measurable tools.

And this is just a reinvention of the company, which is something we've been doing for the last 100 years, as you saw in the film. I could go on for half an hour or so, but we don't have clients in the room. So I think I don't need to continue on that score. Are there any other questions?

Well, we'll be winding up earlier than expected. No, no, I'll come on there. Just being a bit shy.

I'm a visionary and a committed shareholder. In 2026, Publicis is celebrating its 100th anniversary, Vivatech 50 years. You have got a more immersive, more decisive tech approach. Your -- you've got VivaTech is at the 17th of June and Port over, but we've got a whole European sovereignty. Is that the different attacks, assaults on companies, their leaders in the whole planet? This fortress bodyguard, which is a cybersecurity tool because we're here at Publicis cinema. This would be Matrix, the Lord of the Rings, a single sovereign, a minority report anticipating threats. My question is simple. How can Publicis through Publicis Sapient access disruptive technology through VivaTech? Is VivaTech still an agile tool to challenge these projects with your teams?

I'll answer the first question. VivaTech, I'll hand over to my afterwards. Everything you've just said justifies the role of Sapient. Sapient is engineers and consultants who help clients to navigate a complex world and to take on board with these new technologies and integrate them into their business. That's why we're frustrated by the slowdown in investment in CapEx of our clients at the moment is because it's hard to predict what's going to happen. But we're confident because all of our clients experience what you've just described. They're going to need engineers like the engineers of Sapient so that they can build the technological platform they're going to need. They will need the data that's the fuel of AI and all of the services we can provide.

Movies regarding VivaTech. Well, for VivaTech, I would just like to give you a VIP pass so that you can get access to the next session and see for yourself all of the innovations there. European sovereignty is something you've mentioned it's not a problem. It's an opportunity. And one of the roles of VivaTech is to open up new possibilities in a world that's dominated by the Chinese and Americans at the moment. It's very important for us to find our place for the future. Come up, give me your name and address, and I'll send you the VIP pass.

There's a question in room 2, and then, we'll come back to you, if you don't mind.

I'm a retail shareholder, Jean Drax. Your revenue in Asia is quite low, EUR 8.9 million in America, EUR 5.3 million in Europe and EUR 1.2 million or EUR 1.3 million for Asia Pacific. Do you think that's going to stay that way? Or are you going to focus more on Asia?

Congratulations, by the way, on what the lead director said that you've organized meetings with independent directors. I don't think other companies do that, and I think it's a great idea.

And regarding the compensation and comparison with other groups, Page 116 of the annual report, you compare with have as, for instance, BWP, is that the right set of companies for comparative analysis? Things are changing a lot. Should the compensation committee not change the panel, WPP, for instance, should it be in there?

Yes, WPP, I got it wrong the first time around, sorry. Antonella, perhaps you could answer that question. Andre, do you want to add anything? I'll begin perhaps with the question about Asia. It's not a major share of our revenue. You're right. But please note that Asia and especially China is the #2 market or the #1 market for many of our clients. So it's not a big share of our revenue, but it's strategic. We are now #1 in China. That's significant. WPP held that position for years through rapid acquisitions. We succeeded with organic growth to become #1. Maurice is a financial director at the moment, but was the architect of everything that we've achieved in Asia.

Thank you. We've got a leader in the region is outstanding. He was recruited by Maurice, and we are confident that we'll be able to develop in Asia organically rather than through acquisitions. We've got a good head start technologically. We want to succeed in terms of excellence, not necessarily in terms of size.

On today, Antonella, perhaps you'd like to come in.

Thank you, Arthur. Just like to specify 1 point. Those executive sessions with just the independent directors are really good. It means that you get a sense of for what it is they feel and what they are thinking. What we note is that there's strong identity in Publicis. So the directors are keen for the company to do well to develop. And this helps us read between the lines, which is not always expressed perhaps in the official Board meeting. So very useful.

Antonella, thank you for suggesting that we have reconsidered our benchmark. We do reconsider the companies regularly in our benchmark panel. We look at companies that are directly comparable, but this is something that's uppermost in our mind, and thank you for reminding of that. It's something that needs to be done regularly.

There was a question in the room, I believe.

Thank you. Good morning. Well done for the results. I've got 2 questions. The first, internationally, situation is very complex and is becoming increasingly so, not just talking about France, although there's a lot of tension in France as well. How are you going to navigate tomorrow? How are you going to organize Publicis to navigate? I don't know if we can call it a crisis. I mean, it's a whole series of crisis. Secondly, my daughter is studying as an engineer in data. Publicis is 100 years old now. What would the founder of Publicis tell my daughter?

I think that's for you, that second question. No, it's maybe for Élisabeth, certainly not for me. I'll let you think it through. I'm going to answer the first question. How shall I put it. It's too early to assess the impact of the crisis. We don't really see it in Q1 results at the moment or for the April figures. But as a shareholder of Publicis, 2 things to bear in mind, we have been able to demonstrate time after time that we managed crisis better than other companies. And we also emerged from a crisis strengthened. And the second point is we managed to deliver. That's why I stressed our teams. We outperform our markets and related markets, although the situation is grim generally. And it's worth noting that.

Let's put 2021 to 1 side because 2020 was really bad. But in 2022, we had 10% growth. Things were going well then. But today, we have the same difficulties our competitors, CapEx cuts. But despite those difficulties, we are managing to deliver record growth and record value for the shareholders. So we manage crisis well, and we manage them well before COVID. 2008, for instance, Maurice mentioned that and others before. You saw the history of Publicis, it's part of our DNA. And secondly, despite the difficulties, we are outperforming well and even very well, and that's very reassuring.

Does that give you enough time to think about the answer?

Yes. I keep thinking about my first meeting with Marcel Gustin Blanchet. I talked about computers. He stopped me and said, "If I put something there, will I get a result there"? And I said, yes. That was his approach. And that's the amazing talent he had. He was always inquisitive, curious about new technology. He wanted to find out more get to know people had a slightly different mindset he wanted to attract them to Publicis. That's why we had a kaleidoscope of amazing skills and personalities. And what he would probably tell your daughter is come along and see me.

Thank you very much. 4, and then we'll take room 2.

Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Philippe, a retail shareholder for many years now for Publicis. So I'm very pleased to be a long-standing shareholder. I don't want to compare myself to Maurice Levy, but I had IT responsibilities in various companies, some small, some larger, some international, for 30 years or more. And I'm still fascinated by this, although I retired 10 years ago, but I'm beginning to have a nagging doubt. While I was working, I managed to understand how computers worked, even though they changed a lot. But now I can't. I can't keep up because with artificial intelligence, and I know you have amazing specialists and experts, but can they stop fake news and data theft? How can you stop that?

And I have this nagging doubt, if you have -- even though you have experts, you say you're developing in China, but in all businesses, Chinese -- the Chinese are very good at 1 thing, and that is to understand the product or the service they bind to suck the juice out of it, and then, to do it cheaper and better back home, and then, they flood global markets. One of the strengths of Publicis is data. Don't you think that you're running a risk if you share that data with the Chinese even if you take a lot of precautions. Aren't you afraid of data theft? Don't you think that sooner or later, they will steal your special skills and lines of business from you?

And I have a brief comment regarding the organization of the shareholders' meeting. Publicis is the leading communication group in the world, and I'm looking around the room now, and I'm not the only elderly person in the room. Probably not the only person in the room who doesn't see that well. So the slides that you showed are using the Publicis colors. So a white background and light beige, it's very hard for us to read.

And second question, I'm very keen on environmental policies in the company. But given the relatively low number of participants compared to other companies like Air Liquide and Sanofi, who hand out a little leaflet that you can look through. Is that not something that Publicis could do as well. I don't think that would be too damaging for the environment.

First of all, regarding the organization. Maurice is Head of Artistic Management, and I'm his assistant. You're probably right, we'll reconsider this. Regarding leaflets, yes, we are always very careful about environmental concerns, but we take -- now securing data is of paramount importance. I will not dwell on this. But of course, we do have process infrastructure and technology that enables us to make sure that our proprietary data and our client data is fully secure. So there are very, very few leagues. And if they were, actually, there are really any leaks. And if they were, we would be able to hedge protect ourselves against them.

Now, the world has changed a great deal on this. And actually, the Chinese are really ahead of the rest of the world. It is opposite now in terms of marketing the platforms. They have created e-commerce, the way you communicate, you buy things, loyalty programs across all the acquisitions of marketing and commerce, they are way ahead of the Americas. Actually, we have American clients that we send to China to show them what we do with global clients in China. So the problem of intellectual property is not an issue for us. And I think that's one of Publicis' strengths. We are a French company. We are, so to speak, at the center of the world geographically as we are located in Europe. But we touch the same importance in all countries to this. Of course, adapting this, trying to be mindful of the local the rest of the world because we are the leader on that market. Thank you very much. We have a question in the room, in room 2.

Good morning. Thank you very much for giving me the floor. My name is. I am an individual shareholder. I study political sciences and international relations. I have 2 questions for you. At secured or obtained great results with the Copanopan commercial, which was without AI at all. Do you think that going full on or going 100% for AI is a good idea considering the very negative feedback and very negative reviews for major brands following commercials that were fully designed with AI. And also, a lot of jobs might be at risk, not all of them, but a substantial share of these jobs. Have you provided -- have you planned any arrangements to support people who might lose their jobs?

These are 2 very good questions. First, as regards AI. That's the way we see things at Publicis. We consider that technology, digital, everything that we've done with social media and today with AI are means and not an end in itself. Hence, the importance that we attach to talent. If AI enables you to create some of the scenes of the 6-minute film that we've shown at a reasonable cost, well, it allows you with great actors to direct a spectacular movie, something that would not have been able without AI.

Now if you use AI to design things that do not meet clients' -- consumers' expectations, it will backfire. And I think that Lucy is doing great work there. We use AI to make creative ideas stronger, not to replace them. In English, people say hyper human. AI is there to make you stronger, not to replace you. And to this end, that's why I highlight this point, you need talent and you need the technologies, particularly data because, again, AI is large sources of data that are aggregated with other sources of data.

Now, coming back to your first question, we never let AI take over in terms of ideas. We just use AI to augment these ideas. Now, you've just asked a question about the future of work, it could take outs. But let me tell you what we do. Something that's really encouraging. We've started to -- we started to put AI at the heart of our work in 2017. We were 70,000 at the time. Today, we are 110,000. And still, we do use AI everywhere. So -- and now, we can replace not jobs, but tasks. Maybe 20%, 25% or sometimes 40% of the tasks carried out by our members -- by our employees can be done now by AI.

And our work is to help them be more efficient to harness AI to help us progress individually and overall and to be able to advance people's careers in the company. We clearly said that the most important for us is our employees. So we have kept hiring, but we're very careful in our recruitment policies because the only way to turn Publicis into something new with AI at its heart is first to generate growth because growth generates jobs. And once you generate jobs, you can reallocate tasks. Also, we need to be on top of attrition. We need to keep good control. We'll manage attrition pretty well up to 40% of people will leave in the coming years. And our priority here again is our employees. We have 2 levers here. First, we need to have a growing number of tasks carried out by AI whilst protecting jobs. Another question from the room.

Good morning. I've been a shareholder for 1 month. It's the first time I go to the Publicis General Meeting on this centenary. I quite enjoyed the first film at the beginning, which was very, very inspirational. Now, as regards the shareholders' clubs, I don't know whether you are considering to create one. I thought that's a bit of promotional advertising for public would be a good thing. Also, have you ever considered organizing a buffet so that shareholders can enjoy themselves? One last question. Would it also be possible to attain tickets for the VivaTech show?

Right. Well, I think I'll start with this. I think that Maurice has no choice but to give you a ticket. We haven't thought of the buffet yet. That's quite new. We did it in the past. Yes, but it was much better in the past wasn't it. Right. However, as regards to the shareholders' club, we have our activity leader, Gabriel, who could say a few words about this.

Right. We will not start the shareholders' club. For us, the priority, first and foremost, is to have a value-creating strategy that yields great value. We do it, thanks to our performance with the dividend, which has been up 4.2% after 6% last year, 17% the year before. So we put all our energy into this. Thank you for your understanding.

Right. Okay. Question there in the Room 1 and then in Room 2. And the third one is there.

We can see that AI is disrupting all industries, all economies, audit, for example, or even in advertising companies because investors think that AI will be developed directly within clients. Well, you may buy a racing car, but you don't become a racing driver yet. Now, data, data is controlled by GAFA that have huge financial firepower. Don't you think that going forward in the long term, the GAFA -- don't you think that they will dominate the entire advertising industry? I don't know what share of this -- of that business advertising accounts for. We can see that a large share of the media business is sucked by the GAFA.

Thank you very much for this outstanding question. First, you're quite right. Today, 95% of what is developed for our clients with AI doesn't work. Only 5% works. When I mean our clients, I mean, overall across all large companies. Why? It's just like you said, if you give a Ferrari to an organization that is not ready, the people that still work in silos, they don't have the data, the infrastructure, they're not ready.

Now, this is a huge opportunity for us. Why? Today, if you are a client and you think to yourself, okay, I'm really going to look seriously into AI. We're all going to need it and it will affect all of us, I think, in the longer term. But it's going to revolutionize everything we do. Well, the first thing you need for this is a functioning energy infrastructure or rather a functioning infrastructure. And we have this with Sapients.

Second, data, that allows you to look at people on an individual basis, exactly like the GAFAM do. And that's what we have with Epsilon. The third thing we need is that you cannot be content with your own data because by definition, you don't have enough data to win. You need to collaborate with partners that can aggregate data and do it securely. And I hope that we can do this with LiveRamp.

Last, you need a platform to make sure that each and every one of your employees can use AI in a simple and functional way in an advertising agency with a partnership with them. That's what we do with Marcel. And the reason for our success today, despite the current global economic crisis that we can deliver this. Now coming back to your question, no one else can do this. The GAFams, they can deliver data, but they cannot deliver this technology and even less so the technological collaboration because data remains in their midst. Data is with us. Sorry, it's a bit technical, but it's all very important.

Now what you need to see is that GAFam will keep thriving for sure. But our clients today understand one thing. They need to own their data to build their own models. It doesn't mean that they won't work with the GAFam, but that means that they will need to know their clients better, well, inside out and even better than the GAFam. That's what we provide at Publicis. And again, as we have seen, we don't have the market cap of these companies, but in the market of several billions, hundreds of thousands of billions, we can have a unique position. We can be the company that supports businesses in technology, value creation, co-data creation to create within their companies, the model that will help them to best harness AI. So we're not against the GAFam. We are an alternative, smaller, I give you that, but that can help its customers. That's why we're so confident about the future. Thank you.

Third question. Question number 3 and then question in the room to Maurice calls the shots here. Yes, someone needs to have eyes on the room.

My name is I'm I've been a shareholder for 30 years like everybody else here. Of course, I'm joking. You have highlighted the outstanding performance of the group for the last years. Is it true across all of the group's subsidiaries or do some offset the weaknesses of others? I work in the events industry. So of course, I'm interested in the dynamics of Publicis Live, its growth, competitors, whether in France or internationally. And I'd like to know what the answer is. And of course, if it's a positive, it's a vibrant company, well, I'm here, I'm interested. I'd like to apply for a job.

Well, we love that. We do love that. That's great. That's how you should go about things. Now, we're very fortunate today. I'm going to give you a very global overview of things. We're fortunate enough to have all our operations that are successful. It's like the so-called Chinese plate game. One of them will maybe be weaker. Well, if everything went fine, we'll be rather in the region of 7% to 8% growth instead of 4%, 5%. And that's all due to the fiscal cuts that we can see everywhere. But all of our business lines have delivered strong growth in the last years. We also strongly believe in the events industry. And I think that the world will polarize.

On the one hand, you will have ultra customization on the other side, large events, sports events mainly. We invent into sports, as you may have seen. We'll invest further -- and of course, we'll follow Benjamin's advice. Just to give you an idea, 97 of the largest viewerships out of 100 are live sporting events in America. So we do believe that the events industry will be increasingly important, especially in a highly digitized and customized events. So please don't forget to give us your resume before you leave.

Over to room 2 now.

Hello, Chair. My name is Richard. I'm an individual shareholder. Some people have preempted my questions on the share price, but that's all right. Anyway, we do know that share prices fluctuate as they please do not always take into account reality. Now, people talk a lot about Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa. You mentioned China. What is going to happen? There are currently 2 wars raging, but this one is a dormant conflict. What happens when the situation deteriorates? What will you do?

One last question. No one has mentioned it, but you've created an amazing atmosphere in this company, and that's probably what most impresses me most. Of course, the results are outstanding, but the atmosphere is quite incredible. It probably comes from the family. Mr. Marcel, I heard him talk some time ago. I suppose the company picked the right successors who have created this great atmosphere. So please keep it up.

Thank you very much. Well, the Chief Atmosphere Officer is Maurice. You're absolutely right. That's the way it works. About Taiwan, we do have the solution. It's Maurice Lévy. If there's a problem, we will send him there. Maurice, over to you.

Well, first, let's deal with Iran. Joking aside, I cannot answer this question. I think we all have our personal views on this. But I think what really matters for us today is to remain flexible whenever there was a conflict in the world that our priority was our employees, they were our priority with the Ukraine conflict also with Russia.

When the war started, all our competitors closed their agencies overnight and fired everybody. We realized that some people were working for Publicis. And it actually goes what you said about the atmosphere and about other things that you said. I think that beyond the atmosphere, what makes us strong is our legacy, our values. Our people are really at the heart of our concerns. So even when things went badly in Russia, we found solutions that people who had been there for 20, 30, 40 years could have a future despite the decisions made by the government. And the same will apply, we'll have the same policy for Taiwan if anything happens going forward.

We decided that we would not try to manage what is unmanageable. But for now, we are preparing for all options, all contingencies. But every time we manage to weather storms by giving priority to our employees.

We've answered the question in room 2. Is that the last question? Right. Last question, please. Is the question in Room 1 or Room 2? No more questions then. Right. We'll stop it here.

We are now going to present and vote on the resolutions, and I hand over to Celine again, the Secretary of the meeting.

Let me start by sharing the final figure for attendance. The shareholders who are present or represented hold 201,712,293 shares out of the total of voting shares that constitute the share capital. I can confirm, therefore, that the quorum has been met on ordinary and extraordinary matters.

Before proceeding to vote, I remind you that the full text of the resolution has been subject to regulatory disclosure, except the additional resolution that was presented during the meeting by Ms. Élisabeth Badinter. I suggest we now watch a short video that will present the resolutions that you are already familiar with. Also, it will present the voting device.

[Presentation]

I suggest we now move on to the vote on the resolution. First resolution, approval of corporate statements for the financial year 2025. The vote is open.

[Voting]

No more voting. The resolution is adopted.

Resolution 2, approval of consolidated accounts for fiscal year 2025. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted.

Resolution 3, allocation of the result and allocation of dividend. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Fourth, special report of auditors on agreements as under Article L 225-38 of the Code of Commerce. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 5, renewal of the Mandate of Director, Mr. Tidjane Thiam. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 6, nomination of Mr. Benjamin as Director. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 7 appointment of Ms. Jaimie Teevan as Director. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 7, approval of the report on compensation for fiscal year 2025. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 8 approval of components of compensation to be paid out under fiscal year 2025 to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, CEO. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 9, approval of the compensation policy for the CEO under fiscal year 2026. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 10, approval of the compensation policy for the directors under fiscal year 2026. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. 11, authorization to intervene to trade own shares. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 12, delegating the power to increase capital by issue maintaining preferential subscription rights of shares, which give access to capital. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 13, delegate the possibility to increase capital by issue without preferential subscription rights of shares, which give access to capital through public offerings other than private investments. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 14, delegating the power to increase capital by issue without preferential subscription rights of shares, which give access to capital through private investment. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 15, delegating the power to increase the number of securities to be issued in the event of an increase in capital decided by application of Resolutions 12 to 14. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 16, delegating the power to increase capital by incorporating reserves profits, bonuses or others. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 17, delegation to issue shares marketable securities without preferential subscription right in the event of a public offering initiated by the company. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. 18, delegation to issue shares or marketable securities without preferential subscription rights with a view to compensating provision in kind agreed by the company. Please vote now.

[Voting]

Voting closed. Adopted. Resolution 19, delegating the power to issue shares or marketable securities without preferential subscription rights to benefit one of several people who have been designated by name. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 20, delegating the power to increase capital to benefit members of a corporate savings plan. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 21, delegating the power to increase capital in favor of certain categories of beneficiaries located abroad with the possibility of setting up shareholders or savings plan to benefit them. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted. Resolution 22, granting powers for formalities. Please vote now.

[Voting]

No more voting. Adopted.

Thank you very much indeed, Celine. We have reached the end of our agenda. This shareholders' meeting is closed at 12:19. A gift will be given to you in exchange for your voting device. And I'm afraid there is no buffett, but maybe next year, and have a very pleasant day. Thank you for your attendance.

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Publicis Group's acquisition of LiveRamp Presentation. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Group. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sherry. Hello, everyone. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I'm here in New York in the middle of the night with Carla Serrano, Chief Strategy Officer of Publicis Group; and Scott Howe, CEO of LiveRamp. Loris Nold, our CFO, is also on the line, but from Paris.

Thank you for joining us at such a short notice. We wanted to make sure we give you more color following yesterday announcement that we have entered into an agreement to acquire LiveRamp to become a leader in data co-creation and help clients build more intelligent agents. With these strategic investments, we are demonstrating once again our commitment to accompanying our clients in their transformation and continuing to power our growth and financial KPIs by leading the industry into the AI era. But before we get into the presentation, please read the disclaimer, which is an important legal matter. Okay. Let's start with a quick overview.

LiveRamp is a global data collaboration platform and a strategic AI enabler. The transaction represents an all-cash deal for an enterprise value of $2.2 billion. Among its many benefits, it will allow Publicis to become a leader in a new high-growth segment, data co-creation to fuel more intelligent agents for our clients. LiveRamp will also strengthen our ability to deliver Agentic business transformation.

We expect this acquisition to be accretive to our headline EPS from the first year. It will also allow us to raise our '27 and '28 constant currency growth objectives to plus 7% to 8% for net revenue and plus 8% to plus 10% for headline EPS versus previous objectives of 6% to 7% and 7% to 9%, respectively. In terms of next steps, the acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and approval from LiveRamp shareholders. It is expected to close by the end of the year. Now let's get into the detail of this announcement, including what LiveRamp is, the financial details of the transaction, the rationale for this strategic investment and how it fits into Publicis model. We will then answer what we believe are the 3 key questions you could have before opening up to Q&A.

For those who are not familiar with LiveRamp, we thought Scott should start by giving you a quick snapshot of the business. But before, first, Scott, as we say in French, bienvenue to Publicis. We are very happy that you are here with your team and that you will be soon joining Publicis family.

I'm thrilled, thrilled to be here with you and have even moved on the French time. LiveRamp. Well, it's a data collaboration platform that allows companies to connect, unify and activate data throughout the digital ecosystem. Its interoperable technology connects data across all major cloud environments with robust governance tools and a commitment to shared standards that help customers collaborate with trust and transparency at scale. It enables data activation at scale through plug-and-play connections across our extensive collaboration network made up of 25,000 publisher domains and more than 500 data and technology partners in 14 markets. We have over 800 clients, including more than 25% of the Fortune 500 and cover nearly all segments and verticals, including advertisers, retailers, publishers, platforms and holding companies. Customers. Customers are our North Star. So what I'm most proud of over this period is our ability to attract world-class clients and profitably grow their success over time.

Our revenue has grown by a 13% compound annual growth rate over the trailing 5 years. Recurring SaaS subscriptions represent 76% of our business and our customer revenue retention has averaged 107%. In fiscal 2026, LiveRamp's revenue reached $813 million and our non-GAAP EBIT margin of 22% improved significantly and regularly compared to the 4% margin we delivered in 2021.

Scott, I'm sorry for the 2:00 a.m. meeting. Yes, you're right. We're on French time. I'm now going to hand over to Loris, who will tell you more about the financial details of this transaction before we come back with Carla on the strategic rationale. Loris, over to you in Paris.

Thank you, Arthur, and good morning, everyone. Let me walk you through the main financial aspects of the transaction. The total enterprise value amounts to USD 2.167 billion. This corresponds to an equity value of $2.546 billion based on a share price of $38.50 and fully diluted shares outstanding of circa 66.1 million and an acquired net cash of $379 million.

This transaction implies a forward adjusted EBITDA multiple of 12.3x. This multiple is based on a calendarized 2026 non-GAAP EBITDA of circa $126 million for LiveRamp based on consensus that includes a cost of $80 million of share-based compensation to align with Publicis Group's accounting policies and an incremental $50 million of savings on a run rate basis, which I will detail later in the presentation.

The all-cash transaction is accretive to headline earnings per share on a fully diluted basis from the first year of consolidation. Closing is expected by year-end 2026, subject to customary approvals. Moving to the next slide and how we are planning to fund this transaction. As said, this is a 100% cash transaction fully financed through cash on hand and financial debt. We anticipate issuing new bonds in the second half of 2026.

Assuming closing by the end of 2026, this transaction would result in a maximum net financial leverage of around 1.2x in 2027. We expect to confirm our current BBB+ and Baa1 credit ratings post financing of this transaction.

Moving to the next slide and the illustration of the impact of the transaction on our 2026 fully diluted headline EPS. We expect a 2.9% positive impact on headline EPS, assuming calendarized 2026 figures based on consensus for LiveRamp and a post-tax run rate cost improvement of EUR 0.13 per share based on an assumed pretax $50 million savings. The incremental cost of financial debt is expected to be circa EUR 70 million on a full year basis or EUR 0.21 per share after tax.

Moving on to the next slide. We have a strong track record when it comes to accelerating growth of our acquisition post closing. Since 2019, we have closed more than 30 acquisitions and with an accretive impact on our top line. To give you just a couple of illustrations. First, Epsilon delivered double-digit growth in 2021 through 2024, well ahead of our initial expectations.

Second, our bolt-on acquisitions completed over the last 2 years have delivered circa 20% organic growth per year, again, above their stand-alone business plan. We are expecting to see an accretive impact of LiveRamp, driven by its strong growth on a stand-alone basis and as it starts benefiting from the power of One model.

Second, we are absolutely committed to fully preserving the neutrality and inter-operability of LiveRamp's operating ecosystem. In doing so, we intend to secure revenue with all partners and clients, including other holdcos, which represents circa 5% of LiveRamp revenue as we did with Influential and Captiv8 since we acquired them in 2024.

In fact, we proactively wrote to all the other holdcos to make this commitment clear to them. Moving now to cost improvement opportunities. At this stage, we are targeting a minimum of $50 million of savings on a run rate basis. These savings will come from 4 main sources. First, the continuation of the stand-alone margin improvement plan initiated by LiveRamp with its Rule of 40 objective that aims for a non-GAAP operating margin of 25% to 30% by 2028. Second, the post-transaction elimination of all public company costs at LiveRamp. Third, the integration of LiveRamp's back office into Publicis Group shared service centers; and last, some procurement synergies, including IT, hosting and real estate. With this, we anticipate LiveRamp to deliver an operating margin in line with Publicis Group's margin as of year 1.

Moving to the next slide on outlook and capital allocation post acquisition. First, we are confirming our 2026 guidance on all KPIs. This excludes one-off transaction-related costs. Second, with this acquisition, we are raising our 2027-2028 objectives at constant currency.

We now expect net revenue yearly growth of 7% to 8% versus 6% to 7% previously and headline EPS growth is expected at 8% to 10% per year versus 7% to 9% previously. In terms of capital allocation, we confirm our dividend payout of 45% to 50% of free cash flow with a floor of EUR 3.75 per share.

We will continue our share buyback policy to offset any potential dilution effect, and our focus will be on balance sheet deleveraging until early 2028. Moving to my last slide on the next steps. The transaction has been signed and will now proceed through customary regulatory approvals and LiveRamp shareholder approval. Scott Howe will remain CEO of LiveRamp and continue to oversee all of its operations, reporting directly to Publicis Group Chairman and CEO, Arthur Sadoun.

LiveRamp will continue to operate as an independent business and for external reporting purposes, its numbers will be reported within the group technology pillar. We expect closing to take place by the end of 2026. This concludes my financial presentation, and I now give the floor back to you, Arthur.

Thank you, Loris. Back to New York. Now let me hand over to Carla, who will explain why LiveRamp with Publicis will position the group as a leader in data co-creation to fuel more intelligent agents for our clients.

Hi, everyone. First, let me take a beat to explain what data co-creation is. Data co-creation is the process by which companies connect multiple high-value data sources across partners in a secure environment. This generates new data assets that companies could not build alone. This sets the foundation for building more intelligent agents for clients. It's a valuable capability for clients in today's world.

As AI adoption accelerates, the AI paradox is becoming impossible to ignore. Companies are investing millions and only getting thousands in return. When you roll those investments up across industries, that disconnect becomes even more staggering. $1 trillion in expected AI investment with only 5% delivering meaningful value.

That's $1 trillion of spend without material returns. But let's be clear, the problem with Agentic development isn't the AI itself. It's the data foundation. The fundamental issue is that the agents companies are building today do not have the data required to compete and grow their business.

In fact, 93% of companies don't have the right data to support effective Agentic builds. This is because of 3 things. First, most companies are running agents on legacy enterprise data built to report on the past, not make decisions for the future. Second, everyone has access to the same data for the same agents, killing their competitive advantage. Third, all of that incomplete and disconnected data increases AI hallucinations, moves agents further away from their set objectives and means companies can't identify where an agent went wrong or how to fix it. That is why we have decided to invest in LiveRamp.

Thanks to their data connectivity, marketplace, collaborative clean rooms and partner and agent network, combined with Epsilon's identity, we are going to accelerate on data co-creation to help clients build more intelligent agents for real business outcomes. In doing so, we can deliver 3 important advantages that will help clients close that gap between AI investment and return. First, greater speed, security and scale. They can now unify fragmented internal and partner data to enable secure collaboration across organizations without exposing sensitive underlying data.

For example, a bank could build a powerful wealth management life cycle agent. The agent could use unified customer data from its retail banking, credit card and wealth management and securely connect it with partner data from merchants, payment networks and travel providers without exposing sensitive customer records. This agent can now cross-sell faster, coordinate efforts across multiple lines of business and more accurately detect fraud. The business impact of the agent is transformed from narrow task completion into a tangible competitive advantage in customer lifetime value, customer experience and retention and risk mitigation. Second, generate proprietary intelligence. By creating proprietary data assets from new combinations of signals and data sets, they can unlock hidden insights that drive smarter strategies and sustainable competitive advantage.

For example, a retailer could build a comprehensive retail journey agent. The agent could connect data from CRM, loyalty to in-store to retail media network inventory to partners in order to measure the incrementality of each touch point and to build new proprietary journeys for shoppers. The business result of this agent now becomes faster, more efficient shopper conversion and more value for retail media partners.

Third, continuously train and fuel enterprise grade A agents with co-created data to accelerate responsiveness and decision-making. For example, a global pharmaceutical company can build a therapeutic area optimization agent. This agent can compliantly use clinical, commercial and operational signals with patient, prescriber, payer and supply chain data across their brands and at a therapeutic area level. This agent can now use new dynamic signals to balance distribution by brand, optimize field force deployment in the context of marketing and uncover and navigate any barriers in the payer system. The business impact is incremental growth for each brand, more efficient and higher ROI field force activities, therapeutic area product lifestyle management and total enterprise growth. These are just a few select examples of how, as Scott would say, together, we can democratize innovation and data for the entire ecosystem.

Scott highlight the value of democratized innovation and data for the entire ecosystem. It's very inspiring. Look, put simply, agents build on co-created data, learn and improve with every signal, separating them from competitors that train their agent on stagnant generic data.

Building smarter agents by leading in data co-creation opens up a new addressable market that allow us to raise our '27 and '28 financial objectives. It is important to note that it also complements our proven growth model and boost our ability to accelerate client Agentic business transformation. Thanks to Publicis Sapient, we can build and modernize technology and system foundations to make our client infrastructure AI rich. Epsilon market-leading identity connects clients and their agents to real people, behavior and deterministic transactions as a fundamental source of truth and growth potential. With the addition of LiveRamp, we will enable clients to collaborate safely and securely across partners and platform to co-create new data that fuels smarter agents. Last but not least, with Marcel, our Agent platform, we can activate this co-created data across all of our clients' enterprise function. Just to wrap up, as you can see on this chart, LiveRamp perfectly fits into the architecture of our entire model, delivering more intelligent agents to accelerate on our clients' agentic business transformation.

Now before we open the floor to the Q&A, let me first address 3 key questions that I think will be top of mind for many of you. First, for those that are not that familiar with our industry, let me explain why LiveRamp is so different from Epsilon. Actually, Epsilon and LiveRamp serve 2 fundamentally different purposes. Epsilon is a marketing activation engine, focused on using identity and data to drive direct consumer engagement and business outcomes. On the other hand, LiveRamp is a B2B data collaboration platform that connects partners to enable multiparty data collaboration. When you look at their capabilities in detail, the differences are even clearer. On data, Epsilon is focused on organizing and unifying deterministic transactional, behavioral and proprietary data to power personalized marketing and media activation.

Meanwhile, LiveRamp specializes in connecting and unifying fragmented enterprise and partner data across the entire ecosystem. On technology, Epsilon is focused on identity, building a unified identity graph to support audiences creation, media planning activation and measurement across paid and all channels.

LiveRamp expertise is in inter-operability and collaboration, enabling multiparty data collaboration through clean rooms, data onboarding and ecosystem connectivity. On client access, Epsilon is delivered as a managed service designed to help clients reach audiences by activating data through deep insights and by providing performance measurements.

In contrast, LiveRamp operates as a SaaS platform used by publishers, retailers, platforms, brands and partners. To cut a long story short, they serve different purposes, have different data approaches, complementary tech stack and distinct go-to-market. LiveRamp is not duplicative. It will be an additional building block of our growth model. Second question you might have is how LiveRamp neutrality and interoperability will be preserved. Let me be very clear on this one.

As with all Publicis operations that work directly with partners and competitors, LiveRamp will maintain total neutrality. It will continue to operate as an independent business and ensure open access. It will not prohibit or restrict access to its service for any current or potential customer and will remain fully interoperable.

When it comes to privacy and control, LiveRamp will not use or share client publisher or partner data in any way that is not explicitly identified in agreement with them. Last but not least, LiveRamp will not engage in pricing changes beyond standard business practices. As Loris this told you, we have sent a letter to the holding companies that represent roughly 5% of LiveRamp revenue to make those commitments very clear. It's very important to note that independence has been a key growth driver for many of Publicis acquisition, including Influential, Captiv8, Lotame and several sports acquisitions. To give you one concrete example, when it comes to our connected influencer platform, 51% of its growth come from non-publicis clients and competitors who have chosen to use it. Last important question, why acquiring LiveRamp when we are already partnering with them? The #1 reason for this acquisition is that the addition of LiveRamp will allow us to expand into a new addressable market.

In 2019, we acquired Epsilon in the name of leading personalization at scale to enable our clients to take back control of their data from the walled garden by shifting from cookies to identity. Since then, we have been outperforming the industry. Now with LiveRamp, we are looking ahead to what's next by building the future of data co-creation.

It is how we will enable our clients to generate new exclusive and proprietary data to build the smartest and most differentiated AI agent on the top of the leading LLMs. Second, we are confident that the power of One means that we will be able to quickly unite and deploy LiveRamp capabilities for all of our clients globally. With LiveRamp added to our ecosystem of Publicis Sapient, Epsilon and Marcel, as you have seen, we will go even further and faster in delivering agentic transformation for our clients safely and transparently and even more importantly, in their own environment. Last but not least, we have talked a lot about data and technology today. But at Publicis, we continue to believe that people are a key differentiator. We have absolutely no doubt that LiveRamp highly talented teams will have a great impact on our organization. In fact, we worked closely together over the past 6 months through our commercial partnership, which has allowed us to test the cultural fit, and I can tell you something it has been excellent.

Of course, the deal still has to go through the full regulatory process, but we are really looking forward to welcoming Scott and his team to Publicis. Well, thank you for listening. Thank you for joining. And now we are ready to take all of your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Nicolas Langlet of BNP Paribas Exane...

Congratulations on the announcement. I've got 3 questions, please. First of all, on the network neutrality. So do you plan to implement any new governance structure to ensure that all the competing data providers continue to view LiveRamp as a neutral platform.

So is there any change on that front? Secondly, on the synergies, so you have mentioned the $50 million cost synergies, but do you expect any revenue synergies over the midterm? And when do you think they might start materializing and what magnitude we could expect? And finally, on the ID system you will get. So post the acquisition, Publicis will operate 3 distinct identification systems with Epsilon, and LiveRamp -- is there a plan to consolidate those data systems at some point? Or you think they all have their own specificities and they can remain like that?

Thank you, Nicolas. I'm going to take 1 and 3, and I'll pass on to you, Loris, for 2. On the identity, no, we have no plan to consolidate. As you have seen in the presentation, each of our operation actually fit a different purpose, but also can be connected to really bring agent transformation to our clients. And I think this is the power of what we are doing. And by the way, the power of One, which is to bring very different expertise together, but each of them with their culture, with their way to go to market, okay? This leads me to the neutrality.

So I want to be very clear on that. There will be absolutely no change in how today and tomorrow LiveRamp will be led. I mean I've got Scott next to me here that will be able to tell you a couple of words about that. But he will remain, of course, the CEO. The team will still be in place. Again, we have this great partnership for 10 years. We have accelerated for the last 6 months. We have seen how well we work together. And again, one of the big reasons why we are doing this deal is a cultural and people fit.

So to come back to your point, absolutely no change. Now before I pass on to Scott, let me take a moment again to come back to this question because we have seen since yesterday that was a big topic for you guys on the analyst side. So first, we absolutely want to preserve the

inter-operability of LiveRamp because it is part of the business. And that's how they grow and how they will grow in the future. And that's why we are very confident that this is going to only increase the Publicis performance. Second, we are making very strong statement about that here on the call.

But also, by the way, with our competitors that represent today 5% of the revenue. I have addressed a letter to all of them, and we feel confident that we can still work in good condition. And this is only work. The things that matter are the facts. And the reason why we are so confident in our ability to keep this interoperability is actually that the neutrality that you see that you will see with Live is the one we are having today with other of ours. And we mentioned a lot of them, but I think the most interesting one is actually Influential and Captiv8. You would remember at the time we did those acquisitions, you could have hear the market, yes, but the competitors are going, blah, blah, blah.

The result is half of our growth for those platforms come from client, non-publicis clients and competitors. So we know how to do that. But maybe, Scott, do you want to say a word on those 2 points, way, you're more than I am. So feel free to talk about that and definitely on the independents.

Sure. I think you covered it well. And Arthur, you know that this is a topic of conversation that started a long time ago between us. I mean this was very important. We have a 10-year track record of being neutral in the industry, and that's helped fuel our growth. And the commitment that you made already in terms of being committed to remain interoperable and the letters that you sent, I think, went a long way.

But what gave our team even more confidence is just seeing how you've managed your businesses over time. And as you've made past acquisitions, you've allowed them to be neutral and interoperable with the ecosystem, and that's accelerated their success. I think the strongest thing I would say, though, is whatever concerns I may have had melted away yesterday. Yesterday, after we announced the deal, we reached out to hundreds of clients and virtually every major publisher partner and we talked about this, and there was 0 concern across all of those conversations that this commitment would be upheld.

Yes. I think this is a critical point. Again, we were not worried at all, and we have good experience, but nothing replaced the client feedback. And on both sides of the equation, we actually sent, of course, a lot of e-mails. I personally sent like 500 e-mails yesterday.

And the answer we had from the clients was, of course, very strong, but you touched on the point you made, which is, first, and very importantly, and hopefully, you saw that in the presentation, every client understand that building the right data to build the right agent is mission-critical.

We were actually -- I was a bit surprised by how much we were clear on that and that we were really at the right place. But the point that Scott made about neutrality is very important. Honestly, it's easier on our side because, of course, we are bringing a new service, but we have a lot of Publicis clients that are LiveRamp clients. And of course, they trust us to keep this neutrality because they have seen it, of course, with others. And again, coming back on the fact that we are stronger together, the notion between data collaboration and data co-creation is very important. What they can do today is definitely starting to collaborate. But the ability that we're going to have together to create new sets of data, sets of data that will make our client agent kind of super competitive, unique, proprietary is something that they found very interesting and, of course, very appealing. And I would say, last but not least, and I know it's going to be a topic maybe when we talk about our cash allocation they so much feel the need for us to invest in new talent and new capabilities to make sure that we are still relevant in helping them in this AI world.

This is a point that comes from everyone. It is a challenging macroeconomic context at the moment, but they have never ever needed us to invest more in order to make sure that we can continue to be this most valuable player for them. Loris, hopefully, we gave you enough time to prepare the question on the synergy. it's a bit difficult because we are in New York and in Paris. So over to you, Loris.

Thank you, Arthur. Nicolas. So just a couple of points on the top line. The first one is very important is on a stand-alone basis, LiveRamp is an asset that is performing really well. I mean it delivered 13% on a 5-year CAGR. If you translate its Rule of 40 objective into the next few years, you can assume that it will sustain double-digit growth. Now when it comes to revenue synergy on top of it, it's a bit too early to say.

But what I can tell you is that we are expecting the integration of LiveRamp into our Power One model to generate some significant opportunities for LiveRamp clients, for our clients, for new clients.

And obviously, this would have an impact. And if you're looking for, obviously, evidence, look at the acquisition that we have closed in the last 5 years. As I said earlier in my presentation, they have surpassed our initial expectation, both at Epsilon and all the bolt-on acquisition we've closed. So we feel pretty confident around unlocking growth on top of the strong performance that LiveRamp has already been delivering and will continue to deliver.

The next question is from Tim Nollen of SSR.

Congratulations to all parties. And also, thanks for giving us a lot of preemptary answers to the questions that we've got. I wonder if you could expand a little bit maybe, Arthur, on what the addressable markets are that you referred to. There's a lot of AI discussion here. I think you're talking about Agentic AI opportunities. But really, what are these addressable markets that you referred to? And Scott, if you wouldn't mind just explaining why have you decided to sell LiveRamp now and why to Publicis?

Thank you, Tim. Look, I'm not going to come back on all the story about why data co-creation is so important to build the right agent. But happy to take that offline because this is absolutely critical because as I said, and you have seen that in Carla's presentation, we are talking about roughly $1 trillion by 2029 that is going to be spent in agent transformation by our clients, $1 trillion. It's going to be more than advertising. And as you can imagine, one will grow faster than the other. The question there is that there is no way you can capture a part of this investment if client doesn't have the right data. And this is where we see a big opportunity for us is to start capturing this new addressable market. And to be clear, and that's a very important point. We absolutely do not need LiveRamp to win in the marketing space. I think we made a clear demonstration over the last year that we can massively outperform our peers and winning new business with our existing structure. And by the way, with the partnership we're having with LiveRamp. But coming back to this addressable market of more than $1 trillion, our ability to co-create within the same environment with LiveRamp, new products and services that we can sell end-to-end is, we believe, a big for our growth in the future.

And Tim, maybe I can address the why now from the LiveRamp perspective. As you know from covering LiveRamp yourself, you know that clients have always been our North Star. And when Carla walked through the 3 examples around how different sectors are starting to think about AI, she could have just as easily given 30 examples.

Literally, there is not a client that we work with that is not struggling with some of these same issues, how to harness the power of AI, how to move quickly. And you know what, it's hard. It is so hard for them to do that. And there's a couple of reasons for it. One is the data that they need isn't necessarily stuff that sits within their own walls. We can solve that problem for them.

But in addition, the technology that they need is so disparate and it's often hard to bring together. Well, together, this combination solves that problem for them. And so it came back time and time again as it always has in LiveRamp's history is how do we solve the problems that our clients have and do it at scale and generate better performance for them. And the answer kept coming back to, hey, together, we can do this more effectively than LiveRamp could on its own.

And if I may add on that, I think Scott made the right point, which is it was the right time because it is the right time for our clients. And again, everything we have heard since yesterday is a good example of that. And of course, we tested the water in the past to make sure that this was the case. But it's also, I think, the right time for both Publicis and LiveRamp. I mean this long-term partnership that we have been accelerating since the beginning of the year help us to realize how much we knew each other, we were sharing things and we were ready to go. I mean, again, you know us.

We have a very good track record in terms of integration. This integration starts with the people. And the fact that from day 1, we'll be working with people that we are already working with makes a big difference. I think the second thing that is very important is that we are talking since 3 years now about the ones that are winning in this new AI world and the one that are losing.

And the truth is when you look at the performance of both companies, Publicis and LiveRamp, today, the number shows and again, today with the partner of LiveRamp that we are winning. And that makes a big difference because we have nothing to fix.

We just have to make sure that we grow more together and that, by the way, we bring to clients what they need. And finally, honestly, and that's what gets me very excited is that the complementary products and services we are adding are just a perfect match. And hopefully, you saw that in my chart. They are very different. They are serving very different purpose. They will have their own way to go to market. But when we come to clients that today are looking for end-to-end solution in this new Agentic world, we come with a perfect fit.

Thank you for the explanation and please keep the ramp-up conference going.

The next question is from Ciaran Donnelly of Citi.

A couple of questions from myself. Firstly, revenue. I think looking through the accounts, it's 95% U.S.-based. Can you talk about the effectiveness of the platform outside of the U.S.? And is there any reason for not expanding historically outside of the U.S.? And then two, can you just talk about, I guess, in terms of Sapient, is this going to be a positive tailwind for Sapient? And if so, do you expect this to come through in 2027? And maybe just finally, can you provide a split of revenue for LiveRamp from the other holdcos?

Maybe I take the first here, which is expanding outside the U.S. So you're correct. Our business is very concentrated in the U.S. And that's disappointing in some respects because if you look at our client base, our clients are global. If you look at our publisher partners, the Metas, the Googles, the Disney, the Netflix of the world, they are global companies. And if you look at our technology, it is globalized and can be deployed any place in the world. And so we have clients and partners who have actually been pushing us to expand with them internationally.

And we just didn't have the footprint to do that. So I think there's a really nice opportunity here given Public's global footprint and client connections to tap into that over time. And I will tell you, we had a we had an announcement yesterday with our senior leadership, the biggest smiles in the room were the folks that were joining from overseas because they look at this as the opportunity that they've been waiting for, for a decade.

Yes, that's part of our plan, of course, the international expansion. And I think it's interesting to see that both in this case, Sapient and Epsilon, when we acquired them, were roughly 5% international. And you have seen the growth we have been able to deliver on the international side. So this is very promising.

If I understood well your first question about the split on holdcos, we don't give those numbers because we don't disclose any client number to be clear. But what I can tell you is that it's roughly 5% for all holdcos together, except for Publicis, of course. Your question with Sapient, allow me to tell you a bit more about how we see things.

Again, each of those operations fit a very different purpose, okay? And so you have to think about Sapiens as how we're going to be able to modernize the mainframe of our clients. And that's a very big topic because the other big reason why AI is not working with most of our clients today is because they don't have the modernized framework. And this is where we can do a lot of work, and this is where today Sapiens is really starting to do an inroad. The second thing which comes on that is once you have the mainframe, you need identity. I mean I think that now the market has understood, and I'm talking about the financial market because our clients understood that very early. This is why we have been striving with Epsilon and other group is that identity is the qualifier for AI. If you don't have the identity, you just don't win with AI.

Just look at all the platforms, not talking about Publicis, but outside, you don't win if you don't have identity and everyone has understood that. Where LiveRamp adds something great is that data co-creation, meaning collaboration to get new set of data is going to be the multiplier.

It's going to be what makes client win. You get qualified with identity, you win by creating new sets of assets and new set of data. And that's why those 3 things with Marcel on the top, make a difference. So to come back on your question, they will stay independent.

But yes, they will collaborate. And we are, of course, planning in the future for clients to look for an end-to-end solution. But this is not also what we're going to push for. First of all, because most of our clients already work with different suppliers, and we want to make sure we can adapt -- and second, because we have a huge belief that -- sorry, is a bit technical, but absolutely key is that all of this has to be built into our client environment.

Where we're going to make a big difference is that we're not here to sell something that will be apart from their business. We want to make sure that it's core to their business in order for them not only to grow, but to prepare the future. We still have like 10 minutes, and I'm sure there is other questions.

The next question sir is from -- the next question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire of Bank of America.

I've got a couple of questions, please. Arthur, perhaps can you talk on how much of -- or how many, sorry, of your top 100 accounts currently are using LiveRamp? And maybe a couple of questions for Loris. Why would you raise bonds when you actually have access to EUR 4 billion of gross cash today on your balance sheet? And then I apologize if it's early in the morning, but you've raised your 2028 constant currency growth by about 100 basis points. But I think LiveRamp is going to account for, call it, just about 5% of revenue. And as you said, it's growing like low double digits. So how are we getting to like 100 basis points of like revenue growth accretion?

I won't give you a precise number on how many clients out of the top 100 use LiveRamp, but I can tell you a big part of them. The reason why I won't give you a number is that it can go from a very small service to a very big relationship.

So it won't give you a real idea of that. What I can tell you is, first, 100% of our top 100 clients know LiveRamp and have a great image of LiveRamp. This is something that we check. Second, 100% of those top 100 actually answer to our e-mail yesterday and feel very confident either to reinforce the relationship or to know more. And now, of course, there is nothing we can do until the period that is going now is over. And I see my general counsel saying yes, yes, yes, we will. But we feel very, very confident that in a way or another, it will serve most, if not the totality of our clients. Maybe Loris, I give you 2 and 3, I guess.

Yes, sure. Adrien, -- so I'll start with the question on the top line assumption. So as I said earlier, when it comes to net revenue growth at constant currency, we are expecting 7% to 8% versus the 6% to 7% previously. I mean the real assumption here will be on the timing of the acquisition.

As I said, we are assuming that it will close at the end of '26, which essentially means that you should see a full impact from the acquisition on reported growth in 2027. In '28, we will include the impact of LiveRamps on organic growth. combined with what will be the normal effect of incremental bolt-on acquisition, which we would resume and that would close in that year.

Of course, timing as well as what we should assume for LiveRamp soly growth are 2 important variables. So probably the easiest way for you to look at the objective for '27, '28 is an average range for the period, mindful of the fact that if our assumption is correct on timing for the closing, you're right, we are definitely on a conservative end for '27, given that we have to be very clear on one fact that we are not changing our assumption for Publicis stand-alone. On your first question, which was the financing, I mean we will evaluate in H2 what are the financing requirements and decide how we tap the bond market. I think you have to look at it for us, which is financing is about maturity. And so we're looking at our overall debt structure and also any other needs that we might have, working capital funding and all the other requirements of the business. So this is not only specific to the LiveRamp acquisition.

Thank you. We're going to move fast. We have 10 minutes a bit less. So Sherry, back to you.

The next question is from Conor O'Shea of Kepler Cheuvreux.

A couple of quick questions from my side as well. Just firstly, maybe for Scott, just who would you consider your main direct competitors? And in particular, would you consider InfoSum, which I think one of the other agencies acquired about a year ago as a competitor? Do they do the same things as you do or to what extent? Then second question, I think, Loris, you said you expect LiveRamp's margins to be equivalent to publicis at a group level within the first full year. Can you just indicate what the starting point for LiveRamp's margins are in terms of equivalent accounting policies for operating margins for 2026 or 2027? And then the final question, just in terms of how you plan to integrate LiveRamp.

Would you -- are you going to take an approach similar to what you've taken to Sapient in the sense that they are very autonomous within the Publicis Group or more like the Epsilon model where they're closer integrated to Connected Media? What would be the approach there?

Yes, Scott.

Maybe I'll start in terms of competition. I mean, listen, we play in a competitive market. I will tell you that you're direct question was on InfoSum. They're not a company that we run across very often. However, like we do with other clean rooms, we can certainly make them part of our integrations or our networks in the rare instance that a client would want us to do that. I would tell you that I often think about our main competition as our clients just doing it themselves because they're not very sophisticated.

And therein is the challenge, but it's also the opportunity for us because in a connected world where clients are going to need ever-increasing amounts of relevant data to power their models, they're going to need to connect.

And so if someone doesn't choose to work with us today, maybe it's because they're going to integrate directly with Google or directly with Meta. It's just such a small number of integrations that they can manage that degree of complexity on their own. I think over time, as companies have to be more sophisticated about this, the number of integrations actually increases. And we've certainly seen that in our portfolio where the number of connections, the number of collaborations increases over time. And that just fuels additional revenue growth and makes even more use cases available for our clients.

Thanks, Scott. Loris?

Sure. So on the margin, if you look at the consensus for 2026 and you look at it on a calendarized basis because, as you know, LiveRamp's fiscal year ends in March, and you include the cost of share-based compensation of $80 million for LiveRamp, you get to a margin of roughly 14.2% for 2026.

On top of that, when you look at '27, you build the acceleration, the stand-alone acceleration that LiveRamp is forecasting as part of this Rule of 40. And the savings that I mentioned that will be partly realized, actually mostly realized in 2027 and you very quickly get to a margin for LiveRamp, which is at or slightly above Publicis Group's margin in 2027.

Okay.

Thank you, Loris. We're going to -- now I've got to answer your question on integration, which is very important. I mean the truth here, and you can see that in all the acquisitions we have done is that each operation is special. And for each operation, we have an integration that is really tailor-made and definitely in the case of LiveRamp for everything we discussed. So clearly, LiveRamp will remain as a stand-alone business -- it will be led by Scott and his team.

And Scott, as you might have seen, will report to me. For reporting purpose reporting purpose, sorry, as we said, I mean, we will map LiveRamp into our technology Pillar simply because when you look at this model and his capabilities, this is where it belongs. It is a tech business. Maybe a last question very quickly, if we can, Sherry.

Yes, sir, the final question is from Julien Roch of Barclays.

So you already had a commercial agreement with LiveRamp and LiveRamp will stay neutral. So what does ownership brings you? What will you be able to do that you could not do before? I know there's a slide in the presentation, you say addressable market, data co-creation and complementary model. But why would you not be able to do that with a commercial agreement? That's my first question. The second one is if LiveRamp stays neutral, why can't other holding company do data co-creation as well? And then the last question is you said Epsilon was 5% international when you bought them. How much international was Sapient in 2015? And how much Sapient today and Epsilon today? So 3 numbers, please.

Okay. I'm going to go fast. I'm going to leave the last question to you. So again, hopefully, we explained pretty clearly why this deal makes a lot of sense in getting together.

I won't come back on everything we just said and you wrapped up. But if you want to look it in a very simple way, we want to capture the growth of this huge market that is coming. We want to make sure that we can grow, thanks to that.

And second, we want to start building product and services together that no one else could bring, okay? That's basically the 2 reasons why we want to make this deal versus just a partnership. And again, when you look at the potential of the data co-creation market and more importantly, the potential of the agency transformation, you understand why there is growth. And when you look at our product and our model, you understand why it makes sense. Why other can do it? Let me be very clear on that if I haven't before. We are not talking about the marketing space here. Again, as we just said, we did not need LiveRamp to be part of Publicis to win in the marketing space where we make a difference and where we think we're going to bring something very unique. It is in the combination of Sapient plus Epsilon plus LiveRamp plus Marcel to go for this agentic transformation market that is roughly $1 trillion today and that is only going to be growing versus other industries. Loris, maybe?

Yes, sure. Julien. So if you look at Sapient and Epsilon, so I mean, as Arthur said, when we acquired those businesses, they were primarily U.S. domestic base. And if you look at the trajectory, today, Sapient is roughly 40% international. Epsilon is probably closer to 15% to 20%. The difference also is that the starting point on Sapient was slightly higher outside of the U.S. and also the fact that when it comes to Epsilon, they are servicing a number of international clients or the market from the U.S. But take those numbers, 40% for Epsilon and close to 20% -- sorry, 40% for Sapient and close to 20% for Epsilon.

All right. We are almost out of time. We have just a couple of minutes. So if you don't mind, I would like to close with a couple of takeaways. First, as you have seen, and that's a very important point for us, we continue to invest in new talent and innovation.

This is what our clients are expecting from us. I guess you hear it from Scott, you heard it from me. The reaction has been overly positive because they need more than ever partner that can help them in this AI journey. Second, hopefully, we made the demonstration that we know how we are going to be able to continue to thrive and to make sure that LiveRamp thrives as a neutral and interoperable platform. We did it for others. We will do it for LiveRamp today. We feel very confident. Third, and that's come back to your last question is that with this acquisition, we are opening up a new addressable market, which is data co-creation. We're going to be able to fuel smarter agent for our clients and win over a part of this $1 trillion market that Carla described. And last but not least, we went fast on the number, but there will be a lot of news coming next. I mean LiveRamp will allow us to accelerate across all of our financial KPIs. It will be accretive to our EPS, and it will drive faster top and bottom line growth. Well, I hope we've been clear in exactly 1 hour. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion in the coming days. Of course, Jean-Michel and his team are here for you. Thank you so much for joining us so early. Thank you so much for taking the news yesterday on a Sunday. The reason why we did that is that we need to communicate at the moment where both financial markets are closed for LiveRamp and Publicis. So it has to be early in the morning. And this is why, again, we put the press release yesterday. Have a great day and talk soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Publicis Groupe's First Quarter 2026 Revenue Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sherry, [Foreign Language] and welcome to Publicis Groupe First Quarter 2026 Revenue Call. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I'm here in Paris with our CFO, Loris Nold. Jean-Michel Bonamy is also here and will be available to take your questions offline after this call.

I will start this presentation with our Q1 highlights. Loris will then take you through the numbers in more detail before I come back on the reason why we are confident in delivering our full year and midterm guidance. As usual, we will take your questions together after the presentation. But before we start, please take a moment to read the disclaimer, which is an important legal matter.

There are 3 key highlights for the quarter. First, we continue to outperform with Q1 gross revenue up by 6.4% organically and 4.5% in net revenue growth, in line with our expectations. Second, we are delivering this very strong performance despite a deteriorating geopolitical context, proving the resilience of our model. Third, we are confirming our guidance of plus 4% to plus 5% net organic growth and all financial KPIs for 2026 with Q2 organic growth expected to accelerate slightly versus Q1, demonstrating our confidence in our ability to deliver industry-leading results once again this year.

Let's start with the first highlights. Q1 marked our 20th consecutive quarter of outperformance and unmatched track record in our industry. In November, we indicated that if the new industry largest player did not report organic growth on a net basis like all peers, including IPG, we will need to adapt. As a result, from now on, we will report our top line performance using 2 organic growth metrics, gross revenue to allow a like-for-like comparison with the industry largest player as we want to ensure that you have clarity and transparency on our respective performances and net revenue our historic metric for consistency.

When it comes to Q1, our gross revenue grew by 6.4% organically, reflecting strong momentum at the start of the year and demonstrating our ability to capture a disproportionate share of the market. This includes net revenue organic growth of 4.5%, right at the midpoint of our full year guidance and fully in line with our expectations. As in prior years, we have seen consistent delta versus Q4 of roughly 140 basis points. We are further widening the gap with competitors on an estimated net revenue basis as in previous years by close to 800 basis points this quarter compared to 650 basis points a year ago.

Our second highlight is that we are once again demonstrating that our model is built to perform even as the geopolitical context increases macro uncertainties. Our AI-powered marketing services, representing 86% of our net revenue and encompassing data, media, creative, e-commerce, CRM and production delivered strong organic growth of 7.6% in gross revenue and 5.6% in net this quarter as all client demands continue to rise. The only area where the situation in the Middle East is waiting on our operations is around large transformation CapEx projects as client visibility decreases further. As a result, technology, representing 14% of our activity was affected with a slight organic decrease. This is particularly visible in Sapient U.K.-based international operation given their exposure to several Middle East-based clients.

All of our key regions benefited from our momentum in AI-powered marketing services and delivered solid growth. The U.S., our largest market, representing 59% of our net revenue in Q1, delivered another strong quarter at plus 4.7% organic growth, bringing the region to a 7-year CAGR of 4.7%. Europe delivered plus 3.9%. Asia Pac was up plus 5.9% organic growth in Q1. And as expected, the Middle East, Africa region, which represents 3% of our net revenue was down mid-single digits in Q1.

This brings me to our third highlight. While macro conditions appear to be getting tougher, we remain committed to giving you visibility on our performance for the rest of the year. Not only are we confirming our 2026 guidance of plus 4% to plus 5% for the full year, we are also confident that the 4% is rock solid, supported by 200 basis points of new business tailwinds, strong client retention and continued growth across our client base.

Concerning Q2, if macro conditions do not significantly deteriorate, we would expect to see a slight acceleration versus Q1 despite the comp being 100 basis points higher. We are also reiterating our guidance of another slight improvement in our operating margin in 2026. versus our industry high of 18.2% in 2025 and a free cash flow guidance of circa EUR 2.1 billion.

I will now hand over to Loris, who will take you through the detail of our numbers. I will then come back with the reason for our confidence in delivering on our full year 2026 guidance but also on our midterm objectives for '27 and '28, which we announced earlier this year.

Thank you, Arthur, and good morning, everyone. Let me go into the details of our Q1 revenue and net revenue. Revenue was EUR 4.191 billion, up 6.4% on an organic basis. Net revenue was EUR 3.460 billion. Organic growth was plus 4.5%, which comes on top of plus 4.9% in Q1 2025. There was a net negative impact of currency of 760 basis points due to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, the pound sterling and several Lat-Am and APAC currencies versus the euro. And acquisitions, net of disposals contributed 130 basis points, reflecting the impact of 2025 acquisitions, amongst which Lotame, Captiv8, BR Media and p-value. Factoring in those items, net revenue was down 2.1% on a reported basis.

Let's move to the next slide, which shows our Q1 net revenue by region. North America was up 4.7% on an organic basis on top of plus 4.8% in Q1 2025. This solid performance reflected the continued strong dynamic across both Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity. There was a negative impact of the USD versus euro, partly offset by the contribution from acquisitions and reported revenue was at minus 4% in Q1. Europe delivered plus 3.9% in organic growth, led by strong performances in the U.K. and Southern Europe. There was also a negative impact of the pound sterling versus euro, leading to a reported growth of plus 1.2% for the region.

Asia Pacific posted plus 5.9% organic growth. China and India were very strong, up double digit organically. There too, the impact of currency depreciation in the region versus the euro led to a flat growth in Q1. Latin America continued to perform very strongly and reported plus 13.3% organic growth with strong contributions from Brazil and Mexico. And finally, Middle East and Africa was impacted by the geopolitical situation, leading to an organic decline of 5.1% for the quarter.

Let's get into more details for each region, starting with North America. In the U.S., the group's largest geography, which represents 59% of our net revenues, organic growth was plus 4.7% after plus 4.1% in Q1 last year. Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity were both up mid-single digits, benefiting from new business wins and scope expansions. Technology was down low single digit in Q1 with continued wait-and-see attitude from clients.

Let's turn to the performance in Europe on the next slide. Europe recorded plus 3.9% organic growth in Q1. The U.K., which represents 9% of our net revenue, posted a strong plus 6.2% organic growth. Connected Media was up double digit. Intelligent Creativity posted a mid-single-digit growth, while Technology was down as Publicis Sapient in the U.K. is servicing some clients based in the Middle East.

France, which represents 5% of our net revenue, posted plus 1.6% organic growth, fueled by Connected Media up mid-single digits. Germany, which represents 3% of our net revenue was slightly up due to some very positive year-end adjustments in Q4. Lastly, our operations in Central and Eastern Europe were also slightly up after posting double-digit growth last year.

Turning to the next slide for our performance in the Rest of the World. Asia Pacific, which represents 8% of our net revenue, delivered another strong plus 5.9% organic growth, led by Connected Media up double digits. China continues to be very solid with a remarkable plus 11.7% organic growth in Q1, benefiting from positive forward phasing. India also delivered a very high performance with plus 11.7% organic growth in Q1, followed by Australia at plus 7.6%. Latin America posted a plus 13.3% organic growth in Q1, driven by double-digit growth at Connected Media, in particular, in Brazil and Mexico. As mentioned earlier, Middle East and Africa posted a 5.1% organic decline in Q1 with UAE and Israel being the most impacted countries as expected.

Moving to my last slide, net financial debt. Net debt at the end of March was EUR 1.156 billion, up EUR 1.7 billion in Q1, fully in line with our expectations. This increase is due to the usual change in working capital outflow in Q1 and the EUR 175 million of share buybacks executed in Q1, partly offset by free cash flow generation. Acquisitions, including new earn-outs, amounted to EUR 57 million in Q1 related to the acquisition of AdgeAI and the investment in AMI Labs. Payment for the acquisition of 160over90 will take place at closing in the course of Q2. Average net debt for the last 12 months is EUR 1.035 billion, up EUR 363 million versus average net debt at the end of March 2025. This reflects the impact of acquisitions completed since Q2 2025 and is consistent with our full year guidance of circa EUR 1.1 billion.

This concludes my financial presentation, and I now give the floor back to you, Arthur.

Thank you, Loris. With Q1 up 6.4% organically in gross revenue and 4.5% in net, this was another strong quarter for Publicis, particularly in the current macro environment. There are 3 main reasons why we are confident in delivering on our objectives and continuing to outperform not just this year but in 2027 and in 2028.

First, we have 0 distraction, meaning we are 100% focused on our clients. Today, our transformation is behind us, thanks to 3 strategic moves we made over the past decade, investing significantly in data and technology, eliminating silo through the Power of One to integrate those capabilities at the country level and moving early on AI with the creation of Marcel platform back in 2017. Now while others are still reorganizing their structures and cutting costs, we are executing and growing as you can see from our performance.

Publicis was #1 in global new business in 2025, winning circa 6x more total billings than the nearest peers, while also ranking first in regional net new business according to COMvergence latest New Business Barometer. As a result, we have been increasing our media billings in the U.S. from $28 billion to $34 billion. Those gains means that we have not just maintained but also extended our #1 position in these key markets despite last year consolidation of the third and the fourth player. In China, we have taken the lead for the first time in 2025 with $6.7 billion of media billings versus $5.7 billion a year ago.

To cut a long story short, we are #1 in the 2 key markets where scale really matters for our clients, the U.S. and China despite industry consolidation. Our single focus on our clients is the reason why we are having those results and what makes us more confident than ever in continuing to widen this gap with our peers.

The second reason is that while the competitive landscape is shrinking with less competitors, Publicis addressable market continue to expand. There are now fewer scale global players. What was a fragmented market with 6 has reduced to 3 with genuine global reach capable of truly delivering for the largest clients. At the same time, our addressable market is significantly larger. Thanks to our acquisition strategy, we have been able to invest in new and high-growth segments such as identity management, commerce and influencer that are critical for our clients. This has helped us differentiate from our peers, both in sustaining client retention and winning new business.

These acquisitions, which includes most recently Influential, Mars, BR Media or Captiv8 have been accelerating our EPS growth and have proven accretive to our business performance, as demonstrated by the 20% average growth they delivered last year. What's more, our focus and timely capital allocation, supported by the strongest balance sheet of the industry gives us a unique ability to continue acquiring the capabilities and services our clients need to win in the age of AI.

The recent acquisition of AdgeAI in content measurement and 160over90 in sports marketing are just the latest illustration of our strategy in action. As you know, sports has been a strategic priority for us for over a year now. In the Agentic era, the value of sport marketing has only increased. It is the leading channel in terms of direct reach to MICE audience. 97 of the top 100 broadcast programs are live sports. And according to Forrester, CMO will increase their sport budget by 40% in the coming years. With this acquisition, we are following the same playbook as for influencer, buying the best asset in the market, putting Epsilon data at the core and connecting it to our end-to-end media ecosystem. Once the transaction is closed, we will be uniquely positioned to make sports addressable and measurable at scale.

Third, AI has been a structural tailwind for many years, and it will continue to strengthen our business performance going forward. This is not an empty promise but a reality grounded in our financial results and our operating model. Over the past 3 years, in the Gen AI era, we have delivered nearly 20% organic growth, adding more than EUR 2 billion in net revenue. Over the same period, we have widened the gap versus our peers year after year through client retention and new business wins, demonstrating how AI has been a powerful accelerator of our differentiation.

When it comes to our financial performance, since the launch of our AI platform, Marcel in 2017, we have almost doubled our EBITDA and our margin has increased by 270 basis points over the last 8 years, thanks to gains made from automation and operational transformation. And we are not stopping there. AI is also enabling us more than ever to rebalance our offering, shifting to the right mix of people, technology, platform and agents. Since 2024, we have accelerated the identification of our labor-intensive task among many other AI initiatives. This will unlock further operational leverage creating headroom to expand margin while continuing to invest in growth and talent.

AI is making us faster and more efficient. But overall, it is putting us at the heart of our client agentic marketing transformation. Today, our client sees us as the most advanced player in this domain with some of the world's most innovative company choosing Publicis as their partner. This was the case once again last week when we expanded our relationship with Microsoft, thanks to our complementary data, technology and AI capabilities. In the world of Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft Commercial Business, together, we are building a full stack solution that unifies legacy system, AI agents and identity-based data to accelerate our client growth in the age of AI. Each of those structural advantages, 0 distraction and a singular focus on our clients, fewer competition in a larger addressable market and AI as a key accelerator are not only visible in our performance today. They are also the reason why we are confident in continuing to outperform the industry in the years to come.

We have all the conditions in place to deliver on our 2026 guidance as outlined earlier and to sustain this performance beyond 2026 with net revenue growth of 6% to 7% at constant currency in '27 and '28, leading to EPS growth of 7% to 9% in both years also at constant currency. But the strength of our model means that once again this quarter, we have captured a disproportionate share of our client demand for AI-powered marketing services, outperforming our industry for the 20th quarter in a row. Despite the macro uncertainties, we are confident in delivering our full year guidance, thanks to our client retention rates and new business wins. Now our sole focus is on putting our clients at the center, continuing to adapt and evolve our model for this AI world and winning market share. In that context, we are expecting to deliver a slight acceleration of our performance in Q2.

Let me end by thanking our clients for their trust and our people for their outstanding efforts. Thank you all for listening. And now with Loris, we are ready to take all of your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Laura Metayer of Morgan Stanley.

Arthur and Loris, congrats on the good results this quarter. Three questions, please. The first one is on the OpenAI Sora SHUTDOWN. I'm curious, Arthur, what is your view on this and what it means for the industry and for you?

And second question is the growth that you're having with existing clients. Can you talk a little bit about what's driving it? What sort of additional services are they buying from Publicis? Or is it more of the same in terms of what you're seeing there?

And then lastly, on the partnership with Microsoft that you announced last week, what's the business model, the go-to-market and the type of clients you're targeting with the product that you're jointly creating?

Thank you, Laura. I guess I'll start with the growth on existing clients. If I take a step back in order to understand how we are able to actually overdeliver on our growth and continue to outperform, it is mainly due to the breadth of the capability we're having to offer at the moment where clients are really looking for agented transformation, which is basically also the point about Microsoft. And to come back to your question, we are uniquely positioned, first, to help them review their mainframe modernization at the moment where tech is everything if you want to win in AI, and this is basically what we do with Sapient. And this is why we see so much project at the moment despite the problem of the Middle East.

The second thing is once the client have the technology, they need the data. And that's a big critical part. And by the way, one of the reasons why we are winning without pitches at the moment is that every of our clients today understand that it's about identity. And so our ability to put identity at the core of the system allow us to make AI work for real with no hallucination. And that's, again, another area where we do some growth through Epsilon. Third, they need agents. They need to make sure that this data is connected to the right agent that will activate the right media and creative.

And so to come back to your question, when you are credible in technology, when you have the right data that will lead to the right agent, then you continue to grow, by the way, not only in media but also in creative and particularly in production with double-digit growth. So what you need to understand there is that it is because we have an end-to-end model that is not here to serve a communication purpose but the transformation purpose that we are able to grow as we do. And again, if you look at our performance this quarter, what is very interesting is you have roughly 200 basis points that come from the tailwind of new business, but you have 250 basis points that comes from existing clients despite the macro difficulty, despite what we have experienced in the Gulf at the end of the quarter. This hopefully is a testament of the fact that what we are offering to our clients is unique. And by the way, offering it with value, as you know, our margin growth.

I'm not going to expand too much on Microsoft because we -- first of all, we never comment on new business, as you know, for a very simple reason is that you need to be careful when you translate billings into revenue and then in terms of margin. And so I want to be careful on how we talk about that. What I can tell you about Microsoft, which I think is pretty interesting for our investors on the call is we have been hearing so much over the last 2 or 3 years that the tech companies might eat our industry for breakfast and that they won't need us in the future. Hopefully, this is a great demonstration that when you have the right capabilities, when you have made real investments in data, technology and AI, then you can offer something that is a great complement of those big companies. And I think what you should take out of this partnership is that it started by us sitting down with Microsoft and looking at how we can offer to our common clients an agentic solution, and we have seen how well our capabilities were fitting together.

And the second reaction of Microsoft was to say, this looks great. Let's put it on Microsoft as Client Zero. And this is why we have been honored and lucky to start the relationship with them. Actually, and I won't give any name on that call but as some others that you have seen over the last 16 months, I would say, on big wins that was only based on our capabilities.

Now on Sora, I mean, you might remember that when Sora launched at the end of 2024, the market got very concerned. And actually, our share price got heavily impacted. It's bad memories but this is what happened. I think this termination is actually quite symbolic. So thank you for asking the question. And hopefully, the market should recognize it because it fully confirm what we have been saying all along and that we are continuing to say is that consumer adoption is moving faster than enterprise adoption. It doesn't mean that we don't have to move. It means that it's more complex.

And by the way, the point I made about how we accompany our clients making the difference. Clients actually don't want gimmicky solution but they really want enterprise-grade solution to operate within their own environment. And I think what is happening again with Sora is that you can be a fantastic company with great assets, with great AI, this is not an easy thing. An agentic transformation as for the right capabilities, the right people, the right model. And hopefully, you're seeing quarter after quarter that AI is definitely a tailwind for us. It's in our number. And that at the end of the day, because we are at the center of our client transformation, we have a very big role to play.

Sorry, I've been a bit long, but thank you for the question. It's good to talk -- to talk a bit about strategy.

The next question is from Nicolas Langlet of BNP Paribas Exane.

I've got 3 questions, please. First of all, on the Q2 guidance, you expect a slight acceleration. What is driving that expected acceleration? Is it more improved trend with existing clients or higher net new business effect? And can you say what was the trend exiting the Q1, so in March '26 after the Middle East tension started?

Secondly, on the geopolitical tension, how do you perceive the clients' behavior and decision-making differing from previous episodes like the start of the Ukraine invasion back in '22? Are you seeing any shift in client priorities, risk appetite or demand for specific services? And how you're adapting to these changes?

And lastly, to come back on the recent partnership with Microsoft, the AI part of the partnership. What's the expected timeline for the full implementation? And what are the potential impact on Sapient revenue and margin profile going forward?

All right. I'll go fast on the Microsoft again because we don't want to say too much but it's already starting to be implemented with Microsoft, and it's ready for our clients to be developed. So now we're entering into the phase where we have to commercialize our offer. It's too early to know the kind of revenue we can expect. But yes, expect this to be a driver for Sapient in the future for sure. And in 2 ways, if I can, Nicolas, through the revenue, but also through the credibility because as you are seeing at the moment, the question of what system integrators and you can look at the overall market are offering to clients is shifting. And this is a good taste of what we can offer as new product with such an advanced company to our clients.

If I move to the guidance, I will let Loris come back on Q2 in a second, but maybe I use this opportunity to give you, again, a bit of context because I guess with everything that has been happening in the last months since we talk, it's worth spending a bit of time. I mean, again, hopefully, I hope you have seen through our presentation that in a context that is definitely deteriorating, we are giving you visibility. It was very important for us to come to you with the maximum visibility at the moment where you need to have some. And hopefully, you have seen also that we are giving you assurance on our ability to deliver it. And the good news is we didn't fail you on this since years now.

Okay. So we are confirming the 4% to 5%. And maybe a couple of points out of the 4% to 5%. First of all, it's going to be the seventh year in a row. So I mean, for those that were saying that it was cyclical, that this was not sustainable, you see what is really happening. But if you look at a few points that we need to add, first, again, you're going to see a sequential acceleration in Q2, Loris, I'm going to come back into that. But I think it's also important to note that every quarter should be within our full year guidance range, which means that, therefore, our 4% is rock solid even if macro conditions were to deteriorate. And I also think it's important to note that if you look at constant currency, we are roughly when you add acquisition between 6% and 7%. But maybe you can say a word on the Q2.

Sure. Nicolas, so just to give you more granularity on the slight acceleration that we expect in Q2. Again, despite the tougher comp and the deterioration that we see in the macro, there's probably 3 reasons. The first is, you remember, we had some positive year-end adjustment in Q4 that created a favorable sequential base in Q1 ahead of Q2. Second, the contribution from our 2025 new business also sequentially improves into Q2. And the last point is that we continue to see a sustained demand when it comes to our AI products and services. So despite the lower macro visibility, clients are prioritizing solutions that drive measurable outcomes and efficiency. So what explains the acceleration we expect in Q2.

Last but not least, your question on clients is very large. I mean what I can tell you is that after COVID, after the war in Ukraine, after tariff, after inflation and now with the Middle East conflict, I would say that our clients, and you have seen that are used to be navigating uncertainty. This is a reality. By the way, it's incredibly strange to see how much they can take and continue to go on. Because, by the way, they know that if they cut marketing spend, they will lose market share that would be very expensive and very difficult to win back. And this is why we have not seen any significant reduction in marketing budget in Q1. And actually, we have seen a demand that is increasing for AI-powered products and services. And this is why we gave you the number.

When you look at media, creative and you add CRM and commerce, which is roughly 84% of our revenue, 85% or 86% actually, we are growing organically around 6%. So huge demand when it comes to marketing services still because they don't want to lose market share. And of course, with our AI model, we are taking benefit of that.

Honestly, the main impact of recent events and of course, the Middle East has been reduced visibility. And this is why, again, some clients are still -- and many clients actually are still freezing their CapEx. This is affecting Sapient in the Middle East, and we talked a lot about that. This is a very important point when it comes to Sapient. But actually, it's also affecting Sapient in the U.K. where we manage part of what we do in the Middle East. But to be clear, despite the fact that we see a wait-and-see attitude on CapEx, which is again 14% of our revenue, we still see very high demand on AI-powered marketing services that represent 86%. And this is why, by the way, we continue to see a slight improvement again, a continued great dynamic for Q2.

The next question is from Jerome Bodin of ODDO BHF.

Three questions on my side. First, on the budget wins. So regarding what you said, could you just make a recall or an update on the sequence Q2, Q3, Q4 in terms of impact? And if it's 200 basis points in 2026, what should we expect for '27? I know it's a bit early but you already won a few very nice budget in the recent weeks. That's my first question.

Second one on Middle East. Could you just quantify the size of the Middle East for Sapient? And is it a strong decline in March or a total cut? And I guess that's the same for the beginning of Q2 but just to confirm.

And lastly, on the Trade Desk conflict. So first of all, could you come back on the reason of this decision? And then my question is also about the alternative that you have for -- versus the Trade Desk. And could you explain what are the main alternative for Publicis today? And to what extent your own capabilities in terms of media and identity could replace a third-party partner like Trade Desk?

Right. I'm going to quickly take the budget win and then I'll pass on to you for the Middle East and I close with the Trade Desk. So Again, Nicolas (sic) [ Jerome ], we -- as you know, we don't comment too much new business. Actually, not at all. We never talk about a win for many reasons. But I would say the main reason is that new business wins can give you a dynamic but you should all be very careful in how you translate winning billings into revenue and then into margin. I encourage you to look at what has been announced, for example, in '24 and what has happened in '25. We don't want to mislead you with this, and we are being very, very careful.

What I can tell you at this stage is that looking at the momentum we had last year, we feel very confident on the 200 basis points. I'm not going to give you kind of quarter-by-quarter visibility but the 200 basis points is hopefully already a good lecture. And then I have to admit that after what has been an incredible year last year and a very strong Q4 with a major win, we are starting off very strong in Q1 this year. We had a couple of major wins. I mean, one that you know because it has been public, other that were a bit smaller, but are great too. And we have a pipe at the moment that is pretty impressive.

One of the reasons why we are publishing on Tuesday that we basically have pitch every day starting tomorrow. So there is a lot of opportunities. And so getting to 200 basis points next year should definitely be our objective.

Do you want to talk about the Middle East?

Yes. Jerome, so on the Middle East, so the region as a whole represents less than 3% of our net revenue. When it comes to Sapient, you have to look at 2 first, the Sapient business in the Middle East. And as Arthur was saying, the Sapient U.K. handling a number of clients that are based in the Middle East. When you do the sum of those revenues, you get to roughly 10% of Sapient overall. Now all that being said, we've incorporated all those potential headwinds into the floor of our guidance, which is why what Arthur said is the 4% is rock solid.

On the Trade Desk, as you know, we didn't make any comment. But what I can tell you is that the story is very simple, actually. We are auditing the relationship with every of our clients -- for every of our clients with every vendor. Every vendor is audited by Publicis. And of course, we pass the audit to our clients. In this case, BQT ran the audit, and they found that the Trade Desk did not pass it. And the only thing we have done and that we will always do is that we have informed our clients of the filing as we believe it is our responsibility, and it is our responsibility. And that's it. The rest is just noise created by the press.

The thing that I can tell you also to answer your question is that we work with a range of leading DSPs, okay? And we don't have any competing offer when it comes to self-serve DSP products that could be a direct competitor to the Trade Desk, and we are not planning to build any. So to come back to your question, it's too early to say how investment will flow for the future. But what I can tell you is that we will do it very transparently, which is, by the way, a point that is so important for our clients, and they have valued the way we are taking the topic. And we have absolutely no intention to build a competitive offer to the Trade Desk. We want to keep in our position.

The next question is from Ciaran Donnelly of Citi.

First question, just on March exit rates for net revenue organic growth. Can you just give us an idea of how that's trended and particularly around the U.S.? Two, just on the 160over90 acquisition, can you provide any financial details? And I guess, implicitly, what that means for your comments at the full year '25 results around potential for reallocating capital to the share buyback?

And then finally, just on Sapient, should we still expect Sapient to deliver positive organic growth in FY '26?

You want to take the March? On acquisition, there is little we can say. As you know, we are only on the signing and not the closing, so we have to be careful on what we said. But I'll let you take those 2, and I'll finish with the question of Sapient.

Yes. So March was within our guidance. So I mean, all the months in Q1 was strong. And despite what was a more challenging macro, obviously, in the month of March that affected the Middle East, as we discussed, but that was largely compensated by what we saw in the U.S., a very strong performance across the quarter, including in the month of March, which is an acceleration versus what we saw in Q4. So again, it's pluses and minuses that get us to the 4.5%.

On the acquisition specifically, as Arthur said, we've signed 160over90. There's still a couple of months before we get to closing. So we're expecting this to be a cash out in Q2. But we have invested roughly half of the envelope for the year, including earnout. This is upfront plus earn-out. The pipe remains fairly solid, and we're looking at a number of acquisitions. Same strategic priority, focusing on where we can create new addressable market, where we can help our clients grow, again, focusing on identity resolution, on production tech and on new media channels. And we'll give you an update when we get to H1.

And again, it's too early to say. We have a clear plan for acquisition. There are some opportunities. If they were to materialize, it would be great. If not, of course, we will use our cash for share buyback. But for the moment, it's too early to say. We need to see how things are going to evolve. And by the way, I think 160over90 is a great example of what we think is the best use of your cash. We are talking about the segment that is the fastest growing. CMO are planning to invest 40% more on sports. 97 out of 100 top audience are sports. And we are at the moment where we are uniquely placed to make those acquisitions. I mean, I don't want to give you any detail about the transaction.

But what I can tell you is when you look at who was betting for what is the best sports agency and what is the most advanced sector at the moment, it was us and a couple of private equity because we were the only strategic partner that has the balance sheet and the strategy to make an acquisition that is going to be transformational for our clients because, again, what we should not forget here is that in the age of AI, of course, it's about reorganizing ourselves, and we did that years ago. But it's also continuing to invest in capabilities that can make our client growth and open new addressable market for us, and sports is definitely one.

When you come to Sapient, first of all, I think that when you look at the performance on a truly comparable basis, meaning IT consulting, excluding M&A, we are basically performing in line with the rest of the industry. And as you know, this industry still experiences a wait-and-see attitude from clients. As we say, on the one hand, the conflict in the Middle East is clearly having an impact. It has been an impact directly through our operation there and in the U.K., where, again, we deliver services for the Middle East. And also the Middle East is having an indirect impact by furthering and delaying even more of the large transformation CapEx project, okay? This is, I guess, something that you have heard for all of the markets.

But on the other hand, and this is why it's very encouraging, and I started with that with the question of Laura. Sapient remain extremely busy and actually actively engaged in many IT consulting projects because every client will have to transform their mainframe. Every client will have to go through this agent transformation. And so we see a lot of projects that are coming our way at the moment that can start to materialize in terms of CapEx.

I mean -- and to come back to your question, why we expect Q2 to remain challenging, we are still aiming despite Middle East to see Sapient to grow slightly this year, assuming, of course, that the conflict in the Middle East and soon.

Long answer but as we made a short presentation.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Julien Roch of Barclays.

My first question is, can we have the split of the 86% between Connected Media and Intelligent Creative to the nearest percent.

Second question is, can we have the net sales weight of production in Q1 to the nearest percent and production organic in Q1?

And then coming back to your answer on the Trade Desk, you're saying you're not planning to build an alternative to existing DSP. Why not? Because I would think that with Epsilon and all the capabilities you have, you could, in which case your clients would save 15% to 20% of pass-through cost, and that would give you a significant competitive advantage against other agencies. So why do you need DSPs with all the capabilities you have?

Because I'm going to start with the Trade Desk, which would give a bit of time to Loris to get all the specific number you're asking. Look, Julien, again, you see the momentum we're having. The reason -- one of the reasons why we're having this momentum is because we have very clear execution of our plan. And our #1 priority is to build products and services that can help our client growth in this AI world. And it's not by building another platform that we're going to help our clients more. It's about connecting our capabilities, it's about bringing new capabilities in place. And again, yes, you're right. If we were deciding to do that, maybe we will see some growth over there. But there is not a priority for us, by the way, to accelerate in principal media.

As you know, it's roughly 1% of our revenue globally that is in the U.S. So this is not our priority. Our priority at the moment is to continue to invest in our model and bring products and services that our clients can use and really transform. Having another self-serve DSP won't help our clients to transform and grow in this AI world. So we don't see that as a priority.

Loris?

I'm going to be very precise on the split for Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity. So only 86%, which is actually 86.1%, you have 60.2% on Connected Media and 25.9% on Intelligent Creativity. Now the question on the production net sales versus net revenue, I mean, it's probably a broader question on pass-through cost. And Julien, as you've seen from previous quarter, pass-through can vary fairly significantly. But specifically on Q1, I would say probably 2 or 3 things. First, we are very much in line with what was the growth on pass-through in Q1 2025. It was roughly 16%, and we are at 17%. You have to take into account the impact of acquisition as well and the full year consolidation of Captiv8 and BR Media.

We see stronger growth in Q1 actually in events and production pass-through but there is no meaningful change in the contribution with media and production/events each representing about 45% of pass-through cost in total.

Okay. Sorry, I wasn't clear at all. I wanted the percentage of net sales that was production. So within the 25.9% that is creative, how much is production of the total? And then what was the organic production because Arthur said double digit, but I suppose it's low double digit.

Got it. So the production is depending on the quarter, anywhere between 25% and 30% of Intelligent Creativity. And this quarter, it is growing at high single digits. So it's more than 10% on the 25%.

Out of 25% is roughly 10% to 10%-plus, I would say, growing double digit. And by the way, what is very interesting here, Julien, and the big advantage we have is that, I mean, production, as you all see it with people shooting stuff in Nice Studio is over. This is pure tech now. All the platforms are actually built by Sapient. And so that, of course, doesn't represent revenue for Sapient because it's internal cost. But the reason why we see so much growth on production is because we have the best technology with Sapient, the best data with Epsilon, and we can make any content not only addressable but truly measurable. And that's what makes a big difference and why we are growing at this pace.

The next question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire of Bank of America.

I've got a few questions, if that's okay. Arthur, you talked about the fact that you had won Microsoft without a pitch, and that seems to be increasingly the case for some of your biggest wins. I suppose there is a cost benefit for you as you don't incur the classic pitching cost. But would you say that there is also a revenue benefit? And I realize this may be sensitive information, but conceptually, I'm interested to hear if there is a material uplift to revenue versus a classic pitch.

Secondly, after you reported numbers, 2 of your competitors made some strategic presentations, and they both pointed to the fact that -- or one of them at least that they could prune their portfolio, reduce headcount to boost operating margin. I'm just curious if you also see an opportunity that Publicis for the midterm.

Great. I'll start with the second question. I mean, as you know, by the way, because this is -- we moved into the model our competitors moved on last quarter in 2014 under Maurice Levy leadership when we created Publicis Media, Publicis Creative, Publicis Sapient. And at that time, Maurice as the CEO did the heavy work, and I had to do it actually for the Creative part to simplify our structure, to make sure that we have less layer, that things are organized and any assets that was actually not reperforming has been I would say, absorb or merge with others. So we have done this work. And today, there is nothing that really deserves to be seen as being sold basically.

But what is important here is that we move from this phase to another phase because, yes, we have been organized by expertise through Publicis Media, Publicis Creative and Publicis Sapient from 2014 until 2017. And then in '17, we apply a radical shift, which we are the only one to apply. And the reason why, by the way, we brought back organic growth on our client at the time, which is to move from P&L that were per expertise to P&L that were per geographies. And that has been the tough thing to do because one thing is to say we're going to put all the creative together, all the media together, all the tech together, fine. And you can find some efficiencies, and we find some.

So to come back to your question, we have done the work already. But what's really transformed Publicis is when we say now they're going to be a single P&L per country or region for smaller region, basically. That has been maybe the most difficult thing we have done. And as you would remember, we did that in '17, and we paid a very high price in '18 and '19 because our organic growth has been contracted due to the fact that we were really changing our structure. This is, if you ask me, the main reason why we are winning today is that when we make a new acquisition, when we have a new client, we think end-to-end in every country. And by the way, when we have to adjust our cost base, this is how we do too. because it's fluid from one operation to another.

So to come back to your question, we have done this heavy work. And maybe to go to a question that you have not asked yet is we are absolutely not interested in buying more of the same. So we are not at all interested in anything that can come from this process.

On Microsoft, again, I don't want to make too much comment on Microsoft. I think that what is important to take out of this collaboration, but please don't stop to this one. Again, we are not naming any client, but you can think about 2 very iconic more at least that we have won in the last 14 months without a pitch. What you should take out of that is that for clients that truly want agentic marketing transformation, that is serious about AI. And we have to be careful because, as I said, the level of adoption in AI is very different from one client to another. If I make the comparison with gas, there are still a client that wants to run on gas. There are some that wants to go on hybrid, and there are some that want to go fully electric, okay? This is exactly what we are experiencing with clients. Some for the moment, say, oh, I'm not touching my model. It's too early. I want to see what is happening. Most of them want to go hybrid. So they're going to put 30% of Agentic and maybe 70% of services.

And then you have the one that really want to go full Agentic, which is 70% technology, 30% service, okay? For those one, we are the only solution in the market. It's pretty simple because we are the only one with sapiens and with Epsilon, totally integrated at a country level that can deliver 70% Agentic, 30% service. And these are the ones that we are winning without the pitch at the moment.

The final question is from Anna Patrice of Berenberg.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Very well.

Three questions from my side. First of all, you start every time by comparing your company to the advertising agencies, the holding companies. Why you don't compare to Accenture Song or Deloitte Digital, et cetera. So who are your main competitors, do you think really in the new world?

Second question, if you could comment on your retention rate and how you're growing with your existing clients?

And third question is on the remuneration. So my understanding is that, obviously, you have the retainers, you have the credit fees, et cetera. But how do you see the moving the remuneration because of the AI? So is it still a large part on retainers? Is it more now driven by the results? And how do you define the results? So any comments will be quite appreciated on how the remuneration is changing?

Thank you very much. When you're talking about retention rate is on client and not on people, right?

On clients, yes, on clients, exactly.

Thank you for asking the question because if you look at our performance, the thing I am the proudest of by far is our retention rate. We roughly have today a retention rate of 98%. What does it mean? It means that our clients find with Publicis something that they consider they can't find somewhere else. They find the quality of the service with great talent. They find capabilities that they can't have anywhere else. And they realize that with Publicis, they are truly at the center of our model, which is where there is a big difference to coming back to the silos we talk about expertise earlier on.

And so the thing that I look the most is actually at this, and this is, I think, the #1 KPI that you guys should look at because if we are able not only to keep but to grow our clients with new services, it gives you a sense of how we can run our business in the future and how we can continue to win share of markets.

Do you want to say something on remuneration?

Yes. So when you look at remuneration models as a whole, today, it varies from headcount base to time and material with some variable portions typically under the forms of bonuses or maluses. And -- but this is for a limited portion of the total remuneration. And I would say that while the vast majority of our contracts have those variable portion based on KPIs, the share of strictly performance-based today represents, I would say, roughly 10% of our total remuneration. So it's still very early days when it comes to outcome-based remuneration models, and we haven't seen any significant evolution.

As it is the last question, allow me to close with your first question, which is why are we comparing ourselves with holding companies and not with Accenture and Deloitte and others. So first, we are doing it when it comes to Sapient because the direct competitor of Sapient is Accenture and Deloitte. And as I said earlier, if you compare apple-to-apple their performance, we are basically in the same bucket today with -- by the way, they have a higher multiple than we did on that. But maybe more importantly, and that's come back to your question, and I think it's a great reminder for us, and thank you again for raising the point is what we are building today at Publicis is truly a category of one.

And if you look at our growth but by the way, if you look also at our margin improvement, you realize that not only we are outperforming our peers from the holding company but we are also outperforming the Accenture and Deloitte. I think it's very interesting to look at our performance in growth. We did it because the largest player now is also in growth to show you the difference of performance and model. But this is also true if you apply it to the people you just mentioned. And so I think that we have done that now consistently for years. By the way, it's funny to see that we have been outperforming also those direct competitors for us like Accenture and Deloitte since Gen AI.

Since AI came over, we have started to perform better than those guys. Why? Maybe because at the end of the day, as I said, the level of adoption of AI being different from consumer to companies, companies, yes, they need technology, but they also need the best service and people that truly understand them, which is what we are. And again, the reason why we are outperforming everyone and the reason why I think we are building a category of one and maybe we are not doing a great job to explain that is basically threefold. First, because we have invested in best-in-class capabilities. And it has not been easy, to be honest, because we made some strong bets. But today, no one in any of those industries that you just mentioned has, at the same time, identity at the level we do technology, best-in-class capabilities in influencer, e-commerce and now in sport. And no one, by the way, by his model, and that's the second point, is capable of connecting it as we do.

That's what our difference with one last single point, and I will close on that. It is thanks to our talent. And if they are listening to this call, I want to take a second to thank them because at the end of the day, the reason why we have built this category of one is definitely because we have been brave enough to invest in new capabilities. We have been suffering a lot to build a unique model without silos, but more importantly, because we have people that every day in the trenches are focusing on their clients. And by the way, which should be a reassuring message for all of you. This is basically the only thing they do. They don't have to worry about anything else than taking care of their clients and delivering the growth that has allowed us to outperform this industry for the 20th quarter in a row again in Q1.

I thank you very much, and I guess I see some of you soon. [Foreign Language]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Publicis Groupe's Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sherry. [Foreign Language], and welcome to Publicis Groupe 2025 Full Year Earning Call. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I'm here in Paris with our CFO, Loris Nold. Jean-Michel Bonamy is also here and will be available to take all of your questions offline after this call.

I will start this presentation by sharing the main highlights of 2025 and our guidance for 2026. Loris will then provide the full details of our numbers before I come back with a strategic update. As usual, we will take your questions together after the presentation. But before we start, please take the time to read the disclaimer, which is an important legal matter.

Let's dive into the presentation with three key highlights. First, we delivered a very strong Q4 at plus 5.9% organic growth, leading to plus 5.6% for 2025, generating record market share gains. These results set us apart. This is our 6 years in a row of industry outperformance, and we are further widening the gap with our peers.

Second, we are increasing our operating margin, EPS, and free cash flow, while accelerating our investments in AI-powered capabilities, talent and new business. This demonstrates our unique ability to generate further operating leverage while investing in our future.

Third, thanks to our high client retention rate and our new business track record, we expect to maintain our underlying business dynamics in 2026 with another solid full year guidance.

Let's start with the first highlight. Organic growth was plus 5.9% in Q4, despite a tough comparable at plus 6.3% in 2024. This represents a better-than-anticipated Q4, which is traditionally an adjustment quarter and a sequential improvement resulting in a stronger H2 versus H1. This leads to plus 5.6% for the full year in 2025, an acceleration versus our 5-year organic growth CAGR of 5%.

Our performance is driven by three major elements: our best-in-class client retention rate; our ability to grow with our existing clients, which contributed roughly to 300 basis points demonstrating our ability to capture a disproportionate share of their demand for AI-powered products and services; and our record new business performance since 2024, creating a tailwind of 250 basis points.

These very strong results were led by the continued strength of our AI-powered media and creative operations, totaling more than 85% of our revenue.

Connected Media, representing 60% of our net revenue, delivered high single-digit organic growth, driven by market share gains, increased demand for AI-powered products and services and new addressable markets.

Intelligent Creativity, representing circa 25% (sic) [ 26% ] of our net revenue, had a very solid year at mid-single-digit organic growth, fueled by production, new business wins, scope expansions and fewer cuts than anticipated in classic advertising in Q4.

Publicis Sapient representing less than 15% of our net revenue was positive in Q4. As expected, organic growth was almost flat for the full year. Like all leading IT consulting firm, we continue to see client cautiousness towards CapEx spend due to a continued challenging macroeconomic environment.

Despite ongoing macro conditions, all our regions performed strongly, demonstrating the unique global consistency of our model and its supplier resilience to local challenges. The U.S., our largest market representing 57% of our net revenue in Q4, posted solid organic growth of plus 4.3% for the quarter. This led to a growth of plus 5.2% for the year, cementing our #1 position in this market.

Europe delivered plus 6.3% in Q4, accelerating versus Q3, driven by double-digit growth for Connected Media and leading to plus 4.2% full year organic growth. Asia-Pac delivered plus 6.2% organic growth in Q4, fueled by continued new business wins, leading to plus 5.8% for the full year. China had actually a strong overall year at plus 6%.

Second highlight. In 2025, we progressed on all financial KPIs, while materially accelerating our investments, demonstrating strong operating leverage. First, we improved our industry high operating margin to 18.2%. In detail, we actually are now close to 50 basis points in operating leverage. Thanks to our platform organization, a continued focus on automation, offshoring and overall cost discipline. This 50 basis points can be broken down to two; 30 basis points in incremental investment versus 2024, including talent upgrade, our AI plan and new business, which together amount of 230 basis points in 2025; and 20 basis points in operating margin improvement versus 2024, enabling us to reach 18.2%.

Second. Headline EPS came at EUR 7.48, up 6.6% versus 2024 at constant currencies, ahead of our organic growth of plus 5.6%.

Third, and for the first time, our free cash flow exceeded EUR 2 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 10.6%, well above 2024 record levels.

When it comes to M&A, we maintained the high pace of 2024 with circa EUR 1 billion invested to strengthen our capabilities in identity resolution with Lotame; pharma with p-value; influencer marketing with Captiv8 and BR Media, HEPMIL; and sport marketing with Adopt and Bespoke.

Finally, we are proposing a dividend of EUR 3.75 per share, up 4.2% versus 2024, representing the highest payout ratio of the industry at 50.1% and 88% increase over the last 5 years.

Now given the recent depreciation of the U.S. dollar, we thought it would be interesting to show you how we perform in these currencies.

Net revenue is at $16.4 billion, increasing by 8.8% versus 2024. Operating margin is up to $3 billion, a 9.8% increase; and EPS rose by 7%. Free cash flow is at $2.3 billion, up 15.4% (sic) [ 15.5% ] versus last year. And the dividend we are proposing to the AGM will be up 8.8% in dollars.

Last highlights, our guidance for 2026. Like in 2024 and in 2025, we are starting 2026 with the same guidance of 4% to 5%. This sustained performance year-after-year demonstrate the underlying strength of our model in good and bad times. It is the ongoing result of our new business tailwind, our client retention rate and our continued investment in our model to benefit from client arbitrage, particularly, in AI-powered products and services.

This performance assumes Connected Media growing high single digits. Intelligent creativity up low- to mid-single digit, and Publicis Sapient delivering a slight increase. On operating margin, we will continue to slightly improve our already industry-leading margin in 2026, while maintaining high level of investments consistent with 2025.

On free cash flow, we are targeting circa EUR 2.1 billion. This cash generation will allow us to maintain a consistent capital allocation policy, including the payout of our cash dividend, buybacks to keep the share count stable as well as bolt-on acquisition for roughly EUR 900 million to continue adding the differentiating capabilities that will help our client growth.

I will now leave the floor to Loris, who will take you through the detail of our numbers. I will then come back to provide a strategic update for 2026 and beyond.

Thank you, Arthur, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin with the key highlights of our full year results.

Full year revenue was EUR 17.399 billion, up 8.5% versus 2024. Full year net revenue was EUR 14.547 billion, up 4.2% versus 2024 and up 5.6% on an organic basis. Operating margin was EUR 2.648 billion, up 5.1% versus 2024, representing a record 18.2% operating margin rate, up 20 basis points versus 2024. Headline net income was EUR 1.896 billion, up 2.4%. The increase was 6.6% at constant currency. And free cash flow before change in working capital was EUR 2.032 billion, up 10.6% versus 2024.

I will now get into the details of the P&L, free cash flow and balance sheet, starting with the net revenue. In Q4 2025, net revenue was EUR 3.866 billion, up 0.3% on a reported basis. This includes a net negative impact of currency of 660 basis points due to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar, the pound sterling and several LatAm and APAC currencies versus the euro. A contribution from acquisitions, net of disposals of 140 basis points reflecting the impact of 2025 acquisitions including Lotame, Captiv8, BR Media, Atomic 212 and p-value. Finally, plus 5.9% organic growth, which comes on top of plus 6.3% in Q4 2024.

Let's move to the next slide, which shows our Q4 net revenue by region. North America was up 4.2% on an organic basis on top of plus 5.6% in Q4 2024. This solid performance reflected the continued strong dynamic across Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity. There was a negative impact of the USD versus euro, partly offset by the contribution from acquisitions and reported revenue was at minus 3.2% in Q4.

Europe delivered plus 6.3% in organic growth, benefiting from year-end adjustments, which led to strong performances in U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy. There was also an impact of the pound sterling versus euro leading to a reported growth of plus 4.4% for the region. Asia Pacific posted plus 6.2% organic growth.

China remains solid. India and Australia delivered close to double-digit growth. Again, the impact of currency depreciation in the region versus the euro led to a 0.3% reported growth in Q4.

Middle East & Africa and Latin America continued to perform very strongly and reported plus 25.3% and plus 19.1% organic growth, respectively.

Let's get into more details for each region, starting with North America. In the U.S., the group's largest geography, which represents 57% of our net revenues, organic growth was plus 4.3% after plus 5.2% in Q4 last year.

Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity were both up mid-single digits, benefiting from new business wins and scope expansions. Publicis Sapient was almost flat in Q4, with continued wait-and-see attitude from clients.

Let's turn to the performance in Europe on the next slide. Europe recorded plus 6.3% organic growth in Q4. The U.K., which represents 9% of our net revenue, posted a strong plus 7.2% organic growth on top of plus 7.2% in Q4 2024. Connected Media was up double digit in Q4. Intelligent Creativity posted a mid-single-digit growth, while Publicis Sapient benefited from some positive phasing and was also up mid-single digit.

France, which represents 6% of our net revenue, posted plus 1.8% organic growth. Excluding Technology, organic growth was at plus 4.4% with both Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity growing mid-single digits.

Germany, which represents 3% of our net revenue, accelerated organically to plus 8.9% in Q4, fueled by a double-digit Connected Media.

Lastly, our operations in Central & Eastern Europe continued to grow strongly, posting a plus 5.5% organic growth on top of plus 18% last year, fueled by Romania and Hungary.

Moving to the next slide, our performance in the rest of the world. Asia Pacific, which represents 9% of our net revenues, delivered plus 6.2% organic growth driven by Connected Media, which was up double digits. China continues to be very solid with plus 4.3% in Q4 and plus 6% for the full year.

Australia delivered strong performance with plus 9.5% organic growth in Q4 and plus 7.3% for the full year.

Middle East & Africa posted plus 25.3% organic growth in Q4, driven by double-digit growth across all practices.

Latin America posted a plus 19.1% organic growth in Q4, driven by both Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity, in particular, in Brazil and Argentina.

For your reference, you will find, on the next slide, the full year performance by region. As you can see, all regions posted strong organic performance for the full year 2025, leading to plus 5.6% in total for the group on top of plus 5.8% in 2024.

On the next slide, you will find our performance by client industry. For the full year 2025, 9 out of our 10 client industries posted positive growth. Food & Beverage delivered plus 14.2%, thanks to new business wins and scope expansions. Financials ended the year up 11.2%, thanks to new business wins. Healthcare had another strong year at plus 10.9%, thanks to new business wins and scope expansion across several clients. The TMT sectors continued to perform well, posting plus 3% in 2025 on top of double-digit growth in 2024.

Despite the challenging environment, Automotive finished the year up 1% after delivering positive growth every quarter of the year.

Moving to the next slide and our simplified P&L down to the operating margin. Operating margin was EUR 2.648 billion, up 5.1% versus last year. Operating margin rate was 18.2%, up 20 basis points against the record level of 2024. Personnel expenses, excluding restructuring, increased by 3.9% compared to 4.2% for net revenue, generating 15 basis points in margin improvement. Restructuring increased by 11% due to continued investments in talent upgrades.

Other operating expenses were up 3.6%, contributing 5 basis points of margin improvement. Depreciation was up 5.1% due to the increased real estate footprint and IT investments.

Moving to our operating margin bridge on the next slide. Our margin improved by 20 basis points. On the one hand, we delivered 50 basis points in operating leverage, demonstrating our strong cost management against a solid top line growth. This 50 basis points improvement came from personnel expenses for 35 basis points and other operating expenses for 15 basis points. On the other hand, we spent 30 basis points on incremental investments in our AI plan, restructuring costs and new business.

Moving now to our headline income statement below operating margin and focusing on the main items. Headline net financial expenses were a charge of EUR 107 million versus EUR 39 million in 2024, attributable to a lower interest rate for our USD-denominated cash balance. Headline net income tax was EUR 640 million with an effective tax rate of 25.1%. Headline net income was EUR 1.896 billion, up 2.4% versus 2024. Again, the increase was 6.6% at constant currency.

Next slide, our headline EPS fully diluted grew by 6.6% at constant currency to reach EUR 7.48. On a reported basis, growth was 2.5%.

Moving to the next slide, free cash flow. Our free cash flow before change in working capital reached EUR 2.032 billion, up EUR 194 million or 10.6% versus 2024. As expected, the increase in EBITDA of EUR 154 million significantly contributed to the year-on-year growth. There was also a tailwind in tax paid, mostly resulting from non-recurring payments in 2024 and benefiting from the change in tax regulation in the U.S. in 2025. This was partly mitigated by, first, a lower financial income resulting from lower cash balances in euros as well as lower interest rates; second, an increase in CapEx, as expected, reflecting higher investments in our platform and cloud infrastructure as well as additional refurbishment expenses related to new leases.

Moving to the next slide, use of cash. In 2025, change in working capital represented an inflow of EUR 234 million coming after an outflow of EUR 161 million in 2024. While we were aiming for neutrality, we benefited from some positive phasing in client collections at the very end of the cutoff period. Acquisitions, including paid earn-out, amounted to EUR 709 million. Our dividend was paid in July, resulting in a net cash out of EUR 912 million.

On share buybacks, we spent EUR 147 million in 2025 to cover our LTI plans. Other non-cash items represented a negative EUR 725 million. There were two main items: EUR 305 million due to the change in earn-outs and buyouts, EUR 411 million due to the lower U.S. dollar impacting our cash balances. Overall, as a result of these variations, we decreased our end of year net cash position by EUR 227 million.

Moving to net financial debt. We closed 2025 with a net cash of EUR 548 million, which finished the year with a slightly lower-than-expected average net debt on the last 12 months at EUR 971 million. The increase of EUR 386 million compared to last year is mostly due to the impact of the U.S. dollar versus euro, and it also includes the full year impact in 2025 of the acquisitions completed in 2024. And our financial leverage remained stable at 1x, as expected.

Moving to the next slide. A dividend of EUR 3.75 per share will be proposed at our next AGM in May. This represents a payout of 50.1%, in line with the group financial policy and an increase of 4.2% versus 2024. This dividend will be fully paid in cash.

Moving to my last slide, cash allocation for 2026. Our outlook for 2026 is a free cash flow before change in working capital of circa EUR 2.1 billion. Like in prior years, our capital allocation will continue to be comprised of the same three pillars: first, a cash dividend of EUR 950 million, in line with our payout policy of 45% to 50% of free cash flow; second, share buybacks for an estimated EUR 175 million to cancel the potential dilution resulting from our long-term incentive plans and to keep the share count stable; last, we anticipate investing circa EUR 900 million in selected bolt-on acquisitions.

This concludes my financial presentation, and I now give the floor back to you, Arthur.

Thank you, Loris. As you just saw, 2025 was another year of strong performance. These results are driven by the growth model we have built in this new AI-driven world. In fact, since the rise of GenAI 3 years ago, we have consistently demonstrated that artificial intelligence is not a headwind for Publicis. For us, it is actually a strategic driver of growth and margin expansion.

Over that period, in organic terms, our net revenue increased by EUR 2.3 billion, close to 20% and our operating margin by roughly EUR 0.5 billion, also close to 20%. We have also proven the differentiation of our model by significantly widening the gap versus our peers. This is true when it comes to organic growth with an industry out-performance of more than 700 basis points in 2025 on consensus average, up from 230 basis points in 2022.

It is also visible in our operating margin with a 450 basis point lead in 2025, up 150 basis points compared to 2022. Our outstanding performance come down to three strategic moves we made in the last decade. EUR 14 billion invested in data and technology. The Power of One to integrate those capabilities at the heart of our media and creative operation and a first-mover advantage in AI with the creation of the Marcel platform in 2017. This has allowed us to reach the #1 position on all KPIs in 2025.

On net organic growth growing more than twice as fast as the second best performer. On global media billing for the first time last year, including in the U.S. and China, on client retention with no material account loss and a 98% retention rate on new business with more than $8 billion in net new business, as you can see in the JPMorgan ranking.

On financial KPIs, notably margin and free cash flow. On ESG ranking 1st according to seven leading rating agencies. And on market capitalization at $26.5 billion at the end of 2025 despite the merger of two of our largest peers.

Now as we enter our next century, we will go even further in prioritizing transformative growth over legacy asset restructuring. In this booming AI world, our ambition is to be the MVP. In this case, not the most valuable player, but the most valuable partner for our clients, our people and our shareholders.

Let me break that down for you. First, being the MVP of our clients, means we want to be their indispensable partner in their agentic business transformation. No doubt, AI is going to revolutionize everything we do. But so far, it is difficult to scale, expensive to put in place and fails to deliver measurable value in 95% of cases. To cut the long story short, consumer adoption of AI is better and faster than company adoption.

To realize the true potential of artificial intelligence, client need partners that can build enterprise-grade AI solution and leverage them to deliver profitable growth. Concretely, this means a partner that is able to implement the right tech infrastructure, build business agents on the top, put data at the core, orchestrate an agentic platform and leverage the best capabilities, particularly in media and creative for our sector.

We are uniquely built to deliver on each of these steps. And even more importantly, we can connect this full ecosystem, thanks to Publicis Sapient future-facing products like Slingshot and Sustain that can write and modernize client software in half of the time and for 30% of the cost as well as Bodhi, which creates and orchestrate business agents and models.

Epsilon data stack, which allow us to see, understand and directly engage transparency and securely with 91% of adults connected to the Internet globally. Our AI platform Marcel, which connect all of our marketing agents to drive effectiveness for our clients and transforming our workforce. And finally, our Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity operation, which continued to grow ahead of the industry.

Our ability to leverage AI to truly deliver business outcome is the reason why so many clients arbitrate in our favor, as visible in our widening outperformance. Our #1 priority is now to make sure that we can expand this expertise to all of them.

Second, we want to raise the MVP of (sic) [ for ] our people. Let's be clear. Publicis is a savvy business that is the most advanced in AI, data and technology in our domain. But while capabilities are qualifier, people are still our biggest differentiator. Considering them only as adjustment variables could be the case of death in our industry. As Publicis continue to grow, we will empower our people to seize the opportunity of artificial intelligence and enable every one of them to progress.

This means expanding our ambition in upskilling programs through our platform Marcel to make our teams truly AI fluent. In parallel, we will encourage them to leverage new AI tool at their disposal, including agents and coaches. This will enable them to deliver industry-leading personalized and high-impact marketing while boosting their effectiveness and productivity along the way.

Last, but not least, we also want to be the MVP for our shareholders. We are more confident than ever that the technological revolution led by AI will remain a powerful driver for Publicis, both in terms of sustainable growth and operating leverage in 2026 and beyond.

On top line, we expect to continue outperforming the industry with a solid 6% to 7% net revenue annual growth at constant currency, fueled by existing client expansion, new business wins and contribution from acquisitions. AI is making the marketing landscape increasingly complex and fragmented with none of the major platform representing more than 4% of total marketing spend for our clients.

As you have seen in our results, this has put us in a unique position to be a connective tissue generating material growth. On media operations, thanks to our ability to connect paid media, CRM commerce and influencer through AI, but also on content activity, driven by AI production platform delivering personalization at scale.

AI is also a game-changer when it comes to bolt-on acquisition. It allows us to rapidly integrate and connect newly acquired capabilities through our own AI tools and data. As a result, we saw strong 20% organic growth of those new expertise in 2025. In the coming year, we will maintain momentum on acquisition targeting identity resolution, new media channels, production and business transformation.

We are also confident in our ability to improve our bottom line, anticipating annual EPS growth of 7% to 9% at constant currencies. This will come directly from our profitable top line growth, but also from our ability to increase the productivity of our operations with AI. By accelerating the AI-fication of our organization, we will bring even greater elasticity to our cost base, by identifying our processes using AI agents to take on repetitive, labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks.

These Agentic solutions will help us create additional headroom allowing us to invest and generate margin improvement in 2026 and beyond. Well, if there is one thing we hope you will take out of this presentation, it is that we have really built a growth model for this new AI world. 2025 was another year of strong performance for Publicis. We accelerated on our 5-year organic growth CAGR and increased the gap with our peers on every metrics from new business to organic growth, margin and free cash flow.

In 2026, we expect to outperform once again delivering 4% to 5% organic growth despite 6 years of high comparables, while increasing our already industry high margin and record free cash flow. We will continue to execute on our strategy by being the MVP of our clients, our talent and our shareholders. This should result in sustainable solid top line growth, margin expansion and further EPS growth in 2026 and beyond.

Let me end by thanking our clients for their trust and our people for their outstanding efforts. Thank you for listening. And now, with Loris, we are ready to take your questions.

The first question comes from Laura Metayer of Morgan Stanley.

And congrats on the strong organic growth that you achieved in Q4. I have three questions, please. The first is on the deceleration in organic growth that you had in the U.S. in Q4. Can you talk a little bit about what's driving this? Is it purely due to Q4 being an adjustment quarter? And is that trend continuing into Q1? Can you reassure us a little bit here?

Second one is on the guidance. It seems conservative in terms of organic growth for '26 versus what you achieved in Q4 and 2025? Is it just you being conservative or do you think there will be a deceleration in 2025? And how are you thinking about the impact of net new business versus underlying growth for '26?

And then lastly, you talked about your ambition to grow 6% to 7% in constant currency and 7% to 9% EPS growth. Is it -- is that something that you mean you're confident to do in the midterm or did you -- were you referring to 2026?

Thank you very much, Laura. A lot of questions. I think we're going to start with the guidance, then we'll go to the U.S. and then maybe we'll close with what we see beyond actually 2026, which are the numbers we gave at the end.

So let's spend a moment on the guidance, because this is a very important exercise, of course, in the context. I mean in 2026, as we said, we expect to sustain the same underlying business momentum as you have seen in the last years, because it has been years now. Actually, you will remember that Laura, but just like in '24 and '25, we are setting a guidance of 4% to 5% and we plan to outperform the industry for the seventh year in a row, Laura. And let's be clear, the 4% is rock-solid.

Again, what I think we're going to demonstrate here, and hopefully, you've seen that in the presentation, is that we are building a growth model that can deliver against what is a tough and high 6-year comparable in market conditions that are pretty challenging. And again, and I'll come back on beyond 2026 when you start to add the contribution of acquisition, it means that we're going to generate between 6% and 7% growth at constant currency in 2026.

Now if you look at the detail of the number, there are a couple of things that are interesting. When you look at the 4% to 5%, again, we are expecting Connected Media to grow high single digit, and we'll talk about the U.S. in 1 second. We expect Intelligent Creativity to still be up on the segment that normally is down for most of the market, will be low to mid-single digits.

And the good news is that -- as you know, Publicis Sapient has been positive in Q4, and we see them delivering a slight increase next year. To come back to your question, at this moment of the year, exactly as we did last year and the previous year, we expect to reach the higher end of the guidance if the macro condition improves over the course of the year.

I mean, we are talking, as last year and the year before, about EUR 700-plus million that we can add to our business. But before I go to the other financial KPIs, maybe Loris, you can say a word about Q1.

Sure. So, when it comes to Q1 and overall 2026 quarterly phasing, we actually anticipate a very similar pattern as we had in 2025, which essentially means, first and more importantly, that all the quarters will be within the guidance range. Second, that the quarters will be fairly consistent from one to the other compared to last year, if you remember, Q1 was the lowest. Q4 remains an adjustment quarter.

And let's not forget also that we have some positive adjustments in Q4 this year. So depending on what happens in Q4, that could create a small variation, but all the quarters will be within the guidance that Arthur just laid out.

We'll come back -- so just maybe I'm trying to see how we can take all of your questions. Maybe I'll take on your point about the contribution of new business, okay?

So the good news is, we are entering 2026 with actually high visibility, when it comes to new business and we are expecting to deliver in 2026 around 200 basis points. I think there is an important point to take into consideration here is that the material wins that we had in 2025 started early in the year. We have great win in H2, but we had a great win in the first part of the year that actually had a significant impact already in 2025.

Now when it comes to existing clients, which is again what I think is the most reassuring about our plan, is that we think and we know that thanks to our high retention rates, we are expecting between 200 to 300 basis points of growth due again to our ability to have a favorable arbitrage when it comes to AI product powered for media or for creativity. Maybe, Loris, you can say a word about the U.S.

Yes. On the U.S. specifically, if you first take a step back, we've been performing very strongly with 5.2% organic growth for the full year 2025, which is actually an acceleration versus 2024. And if you take an even further step back, we've been delivering more than 7% on a 5-year CAGR basis, which is essentially growing twice as fast as the peer group.

Now specifically, when it comes to Q4 performance, there is no underlying slowdown. The reasons are, I would say, mostly mechanical. First, we have a high comparable base, as you know. Second, there were some positive year-end adjustments in certain regions and in U.S. they tend to be negative. And the third is go back to Q3, we had 7% growth in Q3. So you have to look at the full year, which was again at 5.2%, very strong performance from the U.S.

So just to sum up on all of those points. We believe we have a strong guidance. We show great consistency of our growth model. The 4% is rock-solid. We have already 200 basis points done by new business. We are expecting between 200 and 300 basis points coming from our clients. And of course, we will update you during the year.

Again, on the Q1 guidance, it's definitely within our yearly guidance, and we feel good about that. And finally, just a word on the U.S., where I'm spending most of my time. Honestly, we are very confident for the U.S. in 2026. I think Loris made the point.

Maybe I'll spend a second on what we said about beyond 2026 because, again, what we wanted to demonstrate here is that we have a growth model that is already proven to be sustainable. And by the way, not just for the past 7 years, including 2026, but as you said, Laura, we also see good momentum and strong business momentum for '27 and '28.

And this is basically driven by two structural elements. First, on the top line, we are confident in the 6% to 7% net organic growth, and it's basically supported by two things: our ability to act as a connective tissue and this is why we wanted you to see how we are working that should deliver 4 to 5 points of growth with our clients and new business. And then the mechanical contribution of acquisition that is adding roughly 1 or 2 points on the top of our organic growth. So this leads to the 6s or 7s.

Second, on the bottom line, we actually anticipate to grow in the coming year EPS by 7% to 9%. And this is mechanically coming from our profitable top line growth, but also all the work we are doing in terms of AI-fication of our operation with actually Agentic solutions that are taking labor-intensive tasks and are creating incremental leverage as you have seen already in our number in 2025.

Hopefully, we covered everything. It was a long answer, but with a lot of questions. So if it's fine for you, Laura, we'll move to the next one.

Great. That's very helpful.

The next question is from Nicolas Langlet of BNP Paribas.

So, I've got three questions, please. First of all, on the organic sales trend. So you mentioned 5.9% in Q4 on net revenue, but could you provide the organic sales on the gross revenue for Q4 and '25 as a whole?

And for 2026, would you assume kind of the same gap between gross and net revenue, of course, trying to have something comparable with your key competitor?

Secondly, on headcount, could you provide an update on the company's headcount at the end of the year, including the absolute figure and the organic change compared to last year?

And you have mentioned the Agentic-fication of the cost base, what's the expected trajectory in terms of headcount over the next few years? And finally, so Omnicom and IPG have now completed the merger and announced their new organization, how would you characterize your sustainable edge on Connected Media? Where do you think Publicis is structurally ahead? And are there any areas where you actually see Omnicom architecture pushing you to accelerate your own rollout?

All right. I propose we start with headcount. I'm going to make a general comment and then pass on to you, Loris. And then we'll move to gross revenue, and I'll end up with IPG and Omnicom, it's one for you.

As we said in the presentation, this is a great question on the headcount, and it gives me the opportunity to come back on how we use AI. For us, AI is a strategic driver of growth, and hopefully, we have made the demonstration, but it's also a way for us to expand our margin and we basically started very early.

Hopefully, you have seen that we have built a growth model where the primary use of AI for us is really how do we grow our clients and then we grow our business. But to come back to your question, when it come back to the bottom line, we are actually consistently working to improve our productivity, thanks to AI. What is interesting and maybe you will remember is that we actually started pretty early with this, as we started in 2017 with Marcel. And Marcel is one of the big reasons why we still see this improvement of margin year-after-year while we are growing at the same time.

But if you take only last year, we have unlocked 50 basis points of operating leverage, thanks to AI reducing our cost and making sure that there is a true AI-fication of our structure and processes. So this is leading really to margin expansion, operating leverage that we can use either in our margin or in more investment and it's making a real difference. But maybe you can give the number now.

Yes. On the headcount, as we normally provide the increase in net recruits for the full year, it was about 5,100, which is an increase of 4.8% that you need to compare with an organic growth of 5.6%. There was a slowdown in Q4 where we added 500 net recruits. The attrition remains pretty consistent versus the other years, which is -- versus last year, around 18.6%. So that gives you the numbers on headcount.

Maybe we move to growth.

Yes. On growth, for the full year, we delivered an organic growth revenue of 8.9%. It was slightly higher in Q4, as you ask, at 11.6%. And there's a couple of reasons behind that. One is, we had a fairly strong growth in production, events, experiential side of the business. And the second is that's probably where we saw some of the positive adjustment that Arthur described into Q4, that explains the difference versus in 2024.

I don't want to comment too much on the acquisition of IPG by Omnicom. What I can tell you is a couple of points. First, the drastic reduction of the competitive landscape that we anticipated has become a reality pretty early in 2025. And again, I encourage you to look at the JPMorgan chart.

You understand that we have been a large beneficiary of this. Again, what matters here are the number and not the press release, I will invite you to look at those numbers. They show how we have been able to capture a disproportionate part of new business and win market share.

Second, again, I think that Omnicom is definitely a strong player, it was before this acquisition. It's still a strong player. The big difference between Omnicom and us is that we are investing in new capabilities that can help our clients grow in this AI world. They are consolidating more of the same. Axiom has been with IPG for the last 10 years. It's not that we have not been pitching against Axiom for the last 10 years.

So, I don't think there is absolutely any change in terms of assets. The only thing that is changing, but that, I would say, is a bit back to the future, is that the new Omnicom is roughly the size of what WPP when I started. Actually, the gap is a bit lower. But as John Wren, himself, would say, scale matter to a certain extent.

And by the way, you need to have scale where it matters, which is media where we do data, where we do influencer, where we do commerce, where we do and countries where it really makes a difference, like the U.S. and China, where we are leading. But scale doesn't make you win. I love this expression from John, that says it gets you to the stadium, but it doesn't make you win. And so, now it's really going to be about who has the best model, who has the best talent, who again can differentiate with our capabilities which we are again making the demonstration this year. And there is a very strong new business pipeline coming in 2026. We have good opportunities for Publicis, and we feel very confident that we're going to gain market share again.

Next question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire of Bank of America.

Yes. So a few of them, please. On the 6%, 7% revenue growth that you talk about in Slide 38, how much annual investment in acquisition do you think is required to hit that? Is the EUR 900 million, basically the new normal? Because previously, you had touched on EUR 400 million to EUR 600 million.

Second question, could you discuss a bit the pricing environment in pitches? There's been some talks in the press of potentially some competitors undercutting on price. I'm just curious what's going on there?

And just to come back on the U.S., you answered to Laura's question that it didn't slow down and Q4 performance was really mechanical. So is there an implication in your answer that you expect the U.S. to be better in the first half of '26 versus Q4?

Again, I can start with the U.S. and then maybe you come back on the 6% to 7% and I close with the pricing environment. We just see a very strong momentum in the U.S. Overall, if you look at our performance over the last year, our new business rate win, our ability to really innovate there, we feel very, very strong, no more or less than what you have seen so far.

Although, by the way, as I described earlier, it's too early to anticipate, but all those moving pieces with competition can actually have some leverage for us. But this is too early to say. This is why we're staying where we are with our 4% to 5%. But we feel that there is a lot of opportunities. And I'm touching wood as it could happen any time, but so far, we don't have any defensive pitch. We only have opportunity to grow by H2 because we'll have to win something and of course, 2027.

On the revenue growth, the 6% to 7% that we expect in the medium term, there's roughly an impact of 180 to 200 basis points of M&A, which is consistent with the previous year. So of course, there's a connection to the overall envelope that we allocate to M&A, which should remain fairly consistent, hopefully, but it's more obviously about the revenue impact. So just assume 180 to 200 basis points impact.

And again, I think the point that we need to underline here, Adrien, is that we are delivering a very strong organic growth in what is still a very challenging environment. Just look at our peers and the number they are delivering, which means that if things were to improve, if clients were to resume CapEx, if in general, the sentiment was a bit more positive, we can, of course, expect to do more.

This is way too early to say that this is why we are staying beyond 2026, meaning in '27 and '28, based on what we see in the world today, and I won't comment on the macro, but you know it as I do. So maybe it could be a year where we spend a bit less in acquisition. And by the way, a bit more in share buyback, but we do better growth because the environment is better, that will really depend.

But what is certain is that we see this improvement in the margin and the growth though in the EPS for not only '26 but beyond. On the pitch situation, let's be clear, as I said, we expect 2026 to be another active year for pitches. As I said, we have a strong pipeline. We are expecting again to win market share.

Now is there some pitching -- pitches, sorry, where we see some dumping on prices? Yes, we do. And if you look carefully at the pitch we are participating, you will understand the one that we consider are only based on price that we don't want to participate. Is every pitch difficult and you have to be competitive on price? Of course.

But this is also where we have an advantage with the agility of our model. So again, I think that we can see some dumping some time. It is definitely not the norm, because everyone understands that it's not sustainable. But overall, we feel very good not only about the market momentum in new business, but our own momentum.

The next question is from Ciaran Donnelly of Citi.

Yes. A few left from myself. Firstly, just on use of cash. Can you help us understand what capabilities you're most focused on in terms of adding through M&A in 2026? And secondly, in a case where you don't spend the full M&A envelope, would you consider kind of allocating that cash to share buyback? And can you help us understand the components around the possibility of that coming through and how we should think about a potential quantum in any case?

And then just finally, in terms of potential impact on the operating margin from reinvestment rates, if we look at kind of FY '26 and bridge that full year operating margin, how should we think about reinvestments in FY '26?

Thank you very much. I'll take the M&A strategy and the cash allocation. I'll leave you with the last question, Loris.

So again, when it comes to our acquisition strategy, I think we have been pretty consistent. We are focusing in investing in the product and services that drive differentiation for our clients and actually open new addressable market for us. If you ask me the reason why we are growing so fast versus peers is definitely because of our model, our existing capabilities and our talent, but also our ability to have a very different strategy from our competition and say, "We are not here just to consolidating more of the same, we are here to bring new expertise that you need in this new world."

A great example of that is what we have done with Influencer. This is growing almost triple digit again this year, I guess. But more importantly, when we pitch and with our existing clients, it gives us a big differentiation there. By the way, so much so that some of our competitors are actually using our own platform. So it gives you a bit a sense of why this is the right thing to do for our clients, for our growth and for our financial KPIs.

When you look at 2026, again, we are planning to invest circa EUR 900 million. It's always the same topic. Identity resolution, new media channels, production. There is a lot we can do in production that is becoming very technical and business transformation. And we feel good about the fact that every time we make the right acquisition at the right place with the right people and the right IP, we see a growth that is strongly accretive to our growth. Take last year, our acquisition grew by roughly 20%.

When you look at the cash allocation for 2026, we actually said that we plan to generate EUR 2.1 billion of free cash flow. We are actually increasing versus our record level of 2025. To be clear, we plan to use this cash in two ways. The first half toward up to 50% in cash dividend, maintaining what is definitely the highest payout of the industry.

When it comes to the second half, we plan to spend it toward acquisition, as I said, to boost our growth with AI, and again, this is why this is the right model and this is why those acquisitions are well, are good. But again, we will do a first share buyback to make sure that we allow for LTI plan to keep the share count stable. And an additional share buyback if we were not to spend the full envelope of EUR 900 million towards acquisition.

So you can see half of this EUR 2.1 billion that are already dedicated to a cash dividend and the other half will be split between the acquisition we found, the share buyback we make for the account and more share buyback if we don't spend this money in acquisition.

On the question on the investment, if you look at the sum of our investments in AI, talent upgrades and new business, it represents roughly 230 basis points in 2025, which is up 30 basis points versus 2024 at 200 basis points. So essentially, we generated 50 basis points of operating leverage, if you add on top of it, the 20 basis points of margin improvement that we've generated. Now when it comes to 2026, and specifically H1, I think it's a bit too early to guide.

But what I can tell you is that we continue to -- we will continue to generate operating leverage in 2026 for the reasons that Arthur mentioned, while sustaining a level of investment to support our growth. So the assumption that I would make is a sustainable level of investments.

There is something interesting here, which is to get this operating leverage through AI that is already delivering margin improvement and further investment. We have to invest. What people forget some time is that AI is expensive, particularly in the first year when you want to put the agent in place. So if you look beyond 2026, again, we feel that the model we are doing and the investments we are making at the moment will help us to continue to further improve not only our growth, but our margin expansion.

The next question is from Silvia Cuneo of Deutsche Bank.

My first question is on the outlook for technology. It was encouraging to see another quarter of light positive organic growth in Q4 and you just mentioned you expect some growth in 2026 as well. So, can you talk about what are you observing in terms of client caution in IT consulting still? And do you anticipate some pickup in demand for the transformation project, specifically? Or are you taking some share of the market?

Then secondly, on the AI product strategy and client adoption. Given your investment in AI and the direct contribution this is having already to your performance, can you talk a little bit more about which of your AI-powered services are currently most popular or like in highest demand among the clients? And looking ahead to 2026, will the focus be more on introducing new AI tools and functionalities or driving wider adoption and deeper integration of the existing capabilities across your client base?

All right. Very big question, a large question. I'll start with technology. I'm not sure I got everything, but you tell me if I'm answering your point.

First, again, we said that in the presentation: we were pleased to see that Sapient was positive in Q4. It's basically due to the fact that even though clients have so far not resumed on CapEx, they are still spending money in terms of OpEx to plan for what they need to do next. So we see this kind of growth.

I mean, it's very important to note that more and more every day we consider Sapient as a strategic asset for us. And maybe I'll spend a minute on that as we did not in the presentation. There are basically four reasons. The first is that it did Publicis client access to 25,000 engineers -- true engineer. And by the way, it came back to the question I had previously about Omnicom.

We have 25,000 engineers and consultants at the moment and that can implement for our clients their own business transformation and make sure that we bring the right product. This is super important. Because again, the AI adoption at an enterprise level is way more complicated than when it comes to consumer. And our ability to modernize tech infrastructure, our ability to build agents and then to connect that with the marketing stack is one of the reasons why our clients are choosing us.

The second thing, and to come back to your question, we definitely believe that Sapient in the future will be accretive to our growth. I mean, they have a couple of products that are really what our client need, that our clients are looking at very seriously and we feel confident that on the long run, it's definitely going to be a source of growth.

And last, but not least, it's important to note that Sapient also play a key role, and that's come back to your second question, a key role to make sure that our media and creative operations are actually AI proof. A great example of that is content production. Actually, thanks to Sapient, we have transformed what was a headcount-driven offshore model into an adjusting platform that is actually growing double digits. This will not happen without Sapient.

Now to be clear, Sapient that represents roughly 14% of our revenue continue, as I said, to operate in a challenging context, you can see that with every IT consultant at the moment. But again, that's the good news, we expect Sapient this year to show a slight improvement and we feel very confident again that in the future, we'll have a great dynamic.

I don't want to get too theoretical on your question about AI and where we see big demand and excitement from our clients, but there is definitely a couple of points that deserve to be mentioned. The first is, what our client want most than anything at the moment is growth. And the ability we have to connect our Epsilon data with other sources of data in order to help our clients, thanks to AI, not only to know better their customer but find new prospects and find them at an individual level is definitely something where we are winning because again, we are the only one with this identity graph.

Our ability to then, at an individual level, connect around one consumer, will it be a client or a prospect, the right media ecosystem from paid, earned, shared and owned from, for example, a person to an influencer, to commerce, this kind of thing also makes a big difference. And by the way, a big driver for Connected Media to grow.

Then, and this is where our creative business is growing, it's great to produce content. With AI, everyone can produce content. But what AI allow us to do is actually to connect this content with our data and make content intelligent, making sure that the contents you are sending is paying off or if not is being changed or removed.

And last, but not least, and that's also come back to a point that I know all of you have in mind is that it helps reduce our client cost overall when it comes to marketing. And our ability not only to add them on growth but to add them for cost reduction, again, is one of the reasons why we are growing so fast in such a challenging market and actually widening the gap.

The last point I will make is that because we own all of those data and technology, and we don't rent it. We are able to put it in the client environment. Because, again, the name of the game is marketing transformation is not a fancy AI UX that looks good on paper is fundamentally transforming the business and marketing model of our clients and bringing within their environment, the best tech, the best data and the best AI and this is exactly what we're doing.

The next question is from Jerome Bodin of ODDO BHF.

Yes. A few remaining questions. The first one is on the restructuring for 2026. So what could you tell about this one? And what link could we make with the headcount for next year? So, do you see the headcount may be down or is it more beyond 2027? That's my first question.

My second one is on the -- is related to the recent partnerships of Epsilon with Microsoft and LiveRamp. So could you walk us through this agreement and what they bring to the business? And more generally, what's the strategic rationale with these partnerships, which are very different in nature, but the one with Microsoft seems to be the first one with walled garden. So should we expect this deal to lead to more equivalent deal with other platform going forward?

And very last question on your sport offer. So you recently acquired Bespoke and you signed a partnership with Genius. Should we expect more deal in this field? And could be -- could you make some M&A on that field as well?

Thank you very much. I'll go into -- starting with your last question. Yes, sports is definitely something we are very interested in. Our sport activity and the acquisition we have made are growing very fast. But more importantly, they are a big topic for our clients, because they consider that sport is a priority. And so yes, if we find the right target, we will definitely invest in this area.

When it comes to partnership, LiveRamp and Microsoft are two very different partnerships, but I'll talk about both. And I'll start with LiveRamp.

I mean, we believe that data collaboration is very important for the future. And the fact that we have at the core Publicis, this Epsilon data stack, which is the strongest in terms of identity that as you know, we have enriched with a couple of other acquisitions, allow us to be the best of both worlds. Having our own data that is a competitive advantage for our clients, as we just discussed before, but also having thanks to this identity, an anchor that can accelerate data collaboration.

And as we believe data collaboration is very important, we are making a series of partnership here. You talked about LiveRamp. I don't know if you have seen what we have done with DeCentriq also that is more in Europe. This is very important for us.

Microsoft is a very different story. And maybe you would remember that, Jerome, when I took my job in 2017, we went to an Cannes, and we said, you know what a big part of the future of marketing and advertising is AI. And I will invite you to see what our competitors and the press we are seeing at the moment about this idea.

The least we can say is that it has not been well received. And maybe one of the very few person that thought it was a good idea apart from the Board and definitely, Maurice Levy, was a guy called Satya Nadella, that at the time was CEO of Microsoft for a couple of years. And Satya wrote me and said, "Look, Arthur I think you're right, AI is part of marketing, and I will be very happy to partner with you with Marcel." And this is how we launched Marcel in 2017.

And this is why we have such an advantage of AI today when it comes to managing our own people and finding the operational leverage that we talked about or grow our clients. We are just furthering and strengthening our partnership, making sure that everyone at Publicis has access to Copilot. Because to be clear, we know that we still have room to improve our margins, to continue to invest, but part of this investment we need to make sure that our people are AI fluent and that they have the right tool to be more productive. So this is basically what is a partnership with Microsoft.

Restructuring?

So, on restructuring and headcount. Starting with restructuring, you should assume the same sort of pace into 2026, circa EUR 160 million, which is 1% of our net revenue directed towards talent upgrade and some local adjustments. On the headcount, again, as we're measuring net recruits, same assumption as what we delivered this year, which is our net recruit growth will be below our organic growth. So that gives you a sense of where we're aiming for.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Conor O'Shea of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. Three quick questions from my side. First question, Arthur, just to come back on the tailwind from net new business, just to understand in the 4% to 5% guidance for '26, as it stands today, are you making an assumption that the tailwind from net new business will be similar in 2026 as in '25 or a little bit lower pending what happens in tenders as we move through the '26 year? That's the first question?

Second question on margins. First, could you give a sense of whether incentives as a percentage of net sales for 2025 increased or decreased? And also I see that the margins in North America were a little bit lower, if you could maybe talk around that, is that ramping up on new business or AI investments?

And then the last question, just to come back on Sapient. I think implied in some of the commentary of Sapient's performance by region is a sharp decrease in France and Germany. That's not the first quarter we've seen that. But maybe you can just talk around what's happening in those particular markets for Sapient?

Just quickly on Sapient to start with this. You see ups and downs from one quarter to another in countries because, again, it's pretty project-based. So when you have a scale that is pretty limited, of course, the percentage is pretty high, so nothing particular on that.

Maybe on the new business, which is a great question. The reason why we delivered 250 basis points in 2025 is because not only we benefited from what we won in 2024, but also benefited on the early wins. I won't mention any, as you know, we don't mention any new business, let's say, in Q1 and beginning of Q2.

The good news is we have won a lot this year. So yes, it has benefited to 2025, but it will already definitely benefited to 2026, and this is why we have a clear visibility on 200 basis points. For the rest, as you know, there is a very strong activity at the moment. It's very early in the year. And so I can't tell you more. When we started last year at the same time, we were anticipating 200 basis points, we finished at 250 basis points. Again, what I can tell you for sure is that it's not going to be less than 200 basis points. And this is why, at this stage, the 4% is so rock-solid and the aim is definitely 5%. Let's see how things evolve over the quarters.

Yes. On the question of incentive. Conor. So, as you know, the mix is a cash payment and LTIP, we expect 2026 to be, again, very consistent with 2025 at roughly 3.8% of net revenues.

Okay. Great. And on the North American margins, slightly lower in '25. Can you just talk around a little bit what's happening there?

First, the margins are fairly consistent. As you see, they've been balancing out between the region. In North America, specifically, that's where we bear the largest share of our AI investments. So that explains the difference between 2025 and 2024.

The final question, gentlemen, is from Julien Roch of Barclays.

Yes. I'll start with a wish, not a question, is we get the gross revenue organic going back. You gave us Q4 and full year, but if we could get several quarters back, that would be great.

And then on the questions, there was some press speculation that you were talking to LiveRamp. So is big M&A and are Sapient and Epsilon back on the agenda? That's my first question.

The second is, can we get a breakdown of the EUR 2.8 billion of pass-through between media, production, event and others?

And the last question is the ANA released the survey about Principal Media. I think they got close to 200 U.S. advertisers, which should be quite representative. And U.S. advertisers are saying that they're seeing that about 18% of their billings or media spend goes into principal. When I look at your pass-through coming from media and new billings, you can get max 3%. So, I really don't understand why advertisers are saying that principal is 18% and it looks like it's only 3% for you. So if you could explain that?

The only thing I'm going to be able to explain that as it's coming from them, I don't understand either, to be clear. What I can tell you is that actually, there have been some guidelines that have been issued by Forrester following this ANA report and that we are already following all the principles that they are putting, which include compliance, transparency, budget allocation, performance metrics and media plan.

On Principle Media, I guess, we have been very clear. It is not a strategic priority for us. We are not the biggest player by far. And by the way, it represents roughly 1% of our group revenue. We don't have any barter agencies, which is a huge leverage for this kind of thing and we definitely don't plan to double down.

What is sure is when we do principle and we do principle, we do that in a totally transparent way with our client, which is fully opt-in. So they know exactly what is happening. It's data safe, which I think is the most important point. And of course, we have zero tolerance for garbage inventory. So this is maybe what I can tell you. I don't want to get too technical, happy to take that offline, if you want.

On the M&A, we've been very clear. We have a bolt-on strategy. That's what we have. And hopefully, we've been clear on the use of our cash and how we would use our cash if we don't find the bolt-on acquisition we are looking for. Will it be EUR 800 million, EUR 900 million or a little bit more? Maybe, maybe a little bit less and do some share buyback, maybe. At this stage, it's too early.

What we do believe is that there will be some opportunities. The big question is going to be at what price. And you would remember that depending on the year, we double down or we slow down, because we want to make sure that it's the best return for our investors. So we have been very careful not only on the strategic thing that is bringing to us, but also on the price we are paying.

You want to take the pass-through question?

Yes, I'm going to take the pass-through. So first, I mean, the reason why we don't break down typically gross revenue or pass-through by quarter, it varies -- it can vary very importantly between quarter because just one single event or one big production would make a difference. And then on the EUR 2.8 billion breakdown, I'd say it's close to 50% media, then the rest is 40% on production, events and experiential.

If this was the last question, maybe I want to wrap up quickly. First of all, thank you very much for being with us.

Hopefully, you're going to take three things out of this presentation. The first is we are ending this year on a very strong note, very strong organic growth improving all of our financial KPIs and starting with the guidance despite all of the difficulties, despite the comparable, despite the tough -- a good Q4 guidance that as last year and the year before is for the moment between 4% to 5% with a 4% that is rock-solid.

The second thing, and we discussed a lot about that, so hopefully, we gave you a bit of granularity is, Publicis is winning, thanks to AI. And hopefully, we showed you that not only we are winning on the top line, widening the gap pretty significantly with our peers, thanks to the arbitrage that our clients are making, but we have some operational leverage that we are either putting in our margin or new investments in order to make sure that we continue to build our model.

And last, but not least, and for those that have been following us for a while, I think that over the year now, we have made the demonstration that we have built a growth model. And the reason why we wanted to give you a bit of visibility beyond 2026 is that we believe that growing our top line, growing our bottom line, increasing our EPS is something that we can sustain beyond 2026.

Well, thank you very much. Have a good day, and I guess, see you soon. [Foreign Language].

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Publicis Groupe Third Quarter 2025 Revenue Presentation. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Arthur Sadoun, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sharis. [Foreign Language] and welcome to Publicis Groupe Q3 2025 Revenue Call. I am Arthur Sadoun, and I'm here in Paris with our CFO, Loris Nold. Jean-Michel Bonamy is also here and will be available to take your questions offline after this session. I will begin by sharing the highlights of our Q3 performance and the outlook for the rest of the year. Loris will then get you into the detail of our numbers before I take you through how AI is making us win today and why it will be a strong driver of our growth tomorrow. As usual, Loris and I will take all of your questions after the presentation. But before we start, please take the time to read the disclaimer, which is an important legal matter.

Okay. Let's begin with the 3 key highlights from our Q3 performance. First, we delivered another very strong quarter with net organic growth of plus 5.7% in Q3, building on a strong H1 at plus 5.4%. Second, we are raising our full year net organic revenue growth guidance to a range of 5% to 5.5%, up from our initial 4% to 5% on the strength of ongoing client demand, particularly for AI-enabled product. Third, we are already having good visibility going into 2026, thanks to a record first half performance in new business and a continued strong momentum over the summer.

Let's dive into the detail of these highlights, starting with organic. At plus 5.7% in Q3, our performance was even stronger than the plus 5.4% achieved in H1, confirming our ability to maintain our growth momentum. Once again, this quarter, our results were driven by scope expansion with our clients, sustained strong new business momentum and a competitive landscape that is increasingly favorable to us.

Looking at our business practices, Connected Media representing circa 60% of our total net revenue was once again very strong, posting high single-digit growth this quarter, driven by Publicis Media scale across geographies and channels and powered by Epsilon data. Intelligent Creativity, generating circa 25% of net revenue recorded mid-single-digit growth, unlike market trends, which are negative. This performance was supported by significant growth in production and creative wins.

Lastly, technology with Publicis Sapient representing 15% of our net revenue stayed in positive territory despite the IT consulting market remaining soft as recently reported by the leader of the industry. Although clients are yet to embark in their large-scale AI transformation programs, we are seeing growing engagement on AI consulting projects for them to build their own agentic network.

When it comes to our results by geography, all of our key regions performed well. The U.S., representing 59% of our net revenue in Q3, achieved outstanding organic growth at plus 7.1% this quarter, accelerating versus H1, where all of our practices have been contributing. Europe reported plus 2.8% organic growth against a particularly high comparable in Q3 2024 that included revenue from the Paris Olympics. Asia Pac was again very strong at plus 6.5%, with China up 6.1% in Q3, driven by market share gains.

Turning to our second highlight, our guidance upgrade. In July, on the back of an exceptional first half in new business wins, we had already increased our guidance to close to 5%. Today, we are raising it further to a range of 5% to 5.5%. As you may recall from Q2, we had included some potential contingencies into our raised outlook. However, in Q3, none of them materialized. In fact, we did not see any slowdown. Marketing budgets remain firm with no material cuts taking place. Actually, we saw further acceleration in client demand when it comes to AI-powered products and services, particularly in 3 areas: First, in connecting media, which is booming at high single-digit growth, thanks to our ability to connect paid media with commerce and influencer through AI.

Second, in our AI production platform, which is growing double digits on the strength of demand for personalized content. Third, in building agentic networks for clients who can no longer afford to a fragmented agent strategy and need to break down the silo within their own organization. This is why Publicis Sapient is positive again this quarter. This gave us the confidence to raise our forecast.

Looking at our improved guidance in a bit more detail. The lower end at plus 5% is rock solid. It implies delivering in H2 the same underlying high growth rate as in H1 after adjusting for the 70 basis point tougher comparable. The upper end at plus 5.5% will demonstrate an underlying acceleration versus H1, including a very strong Q4 despite the high comparable. Clearly, the 5.5% is what we are aiming for.

Achieving this net organic growth in 2025 on the top of a 5-year CAGR above 5% and widening the gap with our holding company peers come down to one main reason, our early and sustained focus on implementing our AI strategy at the heart of our unique capabilities in data and technologies. This has translated into material market share gain and stronger client relationship. I will come back to this in more detail later, but if there is one thing I would like you to take away from this morning call is that we are winning today, thanks to AI.

Moving on to our third highlight. We are already in a favorable position of working towards next year, thanks to our unparalleled net new business momentum we have had this year. As such, we expect to outperform again in 2026 for the seventh consecutive year. This confidence is built on our unique positioning, which has enabled our record new business performance in the first half and again in Q3, as shown by the latest JPMorgan data on billings.

In the first 9 months of 2025, net new billings reached $6 billion, close to what we achieved for the full year in 2024. These wins will now create a solid foundation for our growth as we head into 2026. And while you may be getting used to our performance, after 6 years of delivering above-market growth, we plan to outperform again in 2026, building on a multiyear high comparable exceeding 5%, while our main peers will benefit from their very easy comparable of 2025.

I will now hand over to Loris for a deep dive into our numbers. I will then come back to explain why we are uniquely positioned to continue to win, thanks to AI in this rapidly changing environment.

Thank you, Arthur, and good morning, everyone. Let me go into the details of our Q3 net revenue. In Q3 2025, net revenue was EUR 3.529 billion, up 3.1% on a reported basis. This includes a net negative impact of currency of 520 basis points, mostly due to the decrease of the USD and pound sterling versus euro. A contribution from acquisitions net of disposals of 260 basis points, mainly reflecting the revenue of Mars and Influential in 2024, and ATOMIC 212, BR Media and Lotame in 2025. Finally, plus 5.7% organic growth, which comes on top of plus 5.8% organic growth in Q3 2024.

Let's move to the next slide, which shows our Q3 net revenue by region. North America accelerated in Q3, up 3.6%, including plus 7.1% organic growth. There was a negative impact of the USD versus euro, mitigating the contribution of acquisitions. Europe posted plus 2.2% reported growth, including plus 2.8% inorganic growth. There was also a negative impact of the pound sterling versus euro. Asia Pacific posted plus 6.5% organic growth, fueled by Greater China at plus 6.1%. The reported growth was plus 2.9%, impacted negatively by exchange rates. Middle East and Africa also faced a high comparable and was down minus 3% in organic terms. Latin America continued to perform very well with plus 9.6% organic growth.

Let's get into more details for each region, starting with North America. In the U.S., the group's largest geography, which represents circa 60% of our net revenues. We delivered a strong plus 7.1% organic growth. Connected Media accelerated to grow high single digits and Intelligent Creativity was up mid-single digits. Publicis Sapient posted a low single-digit organic growth with continued wait-and-see attitude from clients.

Let's turn to the performance in Europe on the next slide. Europe recorded plus 2.8% organic growth in Q3. The U.K., which represents 9% of group net revenues, was up 10.7%. Connected Media and Intelligent Creativity combined were up double digits, driven by strong new business wins and scope expansion, while Publicis Sapient grew high single digits, thanks to positive phasing on some large clients.

France, which represents 5% of group net revenue was materially impacted by the comparable of the Paris Olympics last year. In addition, Publicis Sapient continues to be affected by some CapEx delays. As a result, France declined 8.6% organically. Germany, which represents 3% of our net revenue, posted a 5.3% organic decline, excluding Publicis Sapient, organic growth was positive at low single digits. Lastly, our operations in Central and Eastern Europe continued to grow very strongly, posting a plus 9.5% organic growth, fueled by global new business wins.

Turning to the next slide for our performance in the rest of the world. Asia Pacific, which represents 9% of group net revenues, delivered plus 6.5% organic growth, driven by Connected Media activities that were up double digits. Greater China remained very strong, delivering plus 6.1% organic growth in Q3 as we continue winning market shares. Middle East and Africa posted a 3% organic decline as it faced a very tough comparable on Publicis Sapient. Latin America posted plus 9.6% organic growth, thanks to the strong performance in Argentina, Mexico and Chile, all growing double digits. Growth in Argentina partly benefited from inflation.

On the next slide, you will find the group's performance by client industry for Q3. 9 sectors out of 10 posted positive growth. And as we indicated before, we are seeing a well-balanced growth among sectors this year. The financial sector was up double digit, accelerating versus 2024, thanks to new business wins. Food and beverage was up 19%, thanks to new business wins and scope expansions. Health care remained strong at plus 8%, in line with expectation and thanks to scope expansions with a number of existing clients. The TMT sector was up 5% against a tough comparable of plus 9% last year.

Moving to my last slide, net financial debt. Average net debt for the last 12 months is EUR 957 million, up EUR 551 million versus at the end of September 2024. This reflects the impact of acquisitions completed since Q3 2024. Net debt at the end of September was EUR 1.6 billion, up EUR 2.4 billion in the first 9 months of the year. The increase is due to the usual change in working capital outflow as well as the impact of acquisitions and lower USD on our cash balance, all partly offset by free cash flow generation. Acquisitions, including earn-outs, amounted to EUR 916 million in the first 9 months of 2025. This concludes my financial presentation, and I now give the floor back to you, Arthur.

Thank you, Loris. Since the emergence of GenAI 3 years ago, a lot has been said about its impact on our industry. When it comes to Publicis, let's be clear, today, we are winning, thanks to AI. This is visible in our industry outperformance in Q3 and in our guidance upgrade. It is mainly due to our EUR 12 billion investment in data, technology and AI over the last decade. We acquired Epsilon, but also Retargetly and Lotame to lead in identity resolution, which is absolutely necessary to truly deliver impact with AI. Today, only we are enabling our client to directly engage with 91% of adults connected to the Internet globally.

We have uniquely connected this identity backbone to our existing media capability while massively expanding into high-growth media channel such as retail media with CitrusAd and Profitero, commerce with Mars United Commerce and influencer marketing with Influential and Captiv8 to maximize our clients' investments.

Finally, we expanded our technology and engineering offering with Sapient and also targeted acquisition like Practia, Corra or Spinnaker to help our clients modernize their tech infrastructure and drive their broader digital transformation. While investing in new capabilities, we have also built an AI-powered native platform, actually several AI native platform for both our people and our clients. We started in 2018 with the launch of Marcel, designed to connect talent and foster collaboration across the group. Two years ago, we introduced CoreAI, which has powered every single pitch we have won this year. More recently, we developed Leona, our end-to-end production platform for data-led content creation, personalization and measurement at scale.

And on the Sapient side, we created Bodhi, an enterprise-grade agentic AI system and Slingshot, a platform that automates and simplifies software development and coding. In total, we have dedicated EUR 1 billion in OpEx over the past 7 years on these AI platforms. These efforts have completely transformed our model and revenue mix, embedding AI into every part of our business. Today, 80% of Connected Media, which represents 60% of our revenue is powered by AI.

For Intelligent Creativity, which represents 25% of our revenue, 1/3 come from our fully AI-enabled production platform that is growing double digits. Within Sapient, AI is at the core of everything we do, positioning us for renewed growth as soon as client CapEx spending resumes. This AI-powered revenue mix fits perfectly with our client needs and allow us to lose less and win more.

Our clients are growing and staying with us longer. Retention among our top 100 clients has remained above 98% for the past 5 years, while average revenue with our top 200 clients has grown by nearly 50% over the same period. At the same time, we are gaining significant market share by consistently topping new business ranking for the past 6 years as reported by JPMorgan.

As a result, we have extracted ourselves from the pack and established a category of one, as demonstrated by our performance when compared to both our direct peers, but also the IT consultancies. In the first half of the year, at constant currency, our 3-year net revenue CAGR reached 7.3% versus negative growth for holding company competitors and just 3.3% for the average of the other IT consulting groups. And the more demand for AI grows, the wider the gap with competition becomes. It was 430 basis points versus our 3 main holding company peers in 2024. It is expected to exceed 600 basis points this year.

Looking ahead, our head start in AI gives us a unique opportunity to accelerate even further. First, it will make us even more indispensable as a key transformation partner to our clients. They are currently facing a marketing landscape that is more fragmented and complex than ever, where tech giants are spending billions on new AI technologies and infrastructure, multiplying the number of platform and channels and making it harder to reach and engage with audiences.

As a result, none of our top clients allocate more than 4% of their total marketing spend to a single platform. In fact, across our top 20 clients, the average spend on their largest platform is just 2%. In this context, our role as a trusted neutral partner able to deliver consistent cross-platform messages, optimize their budget and maximize return on investment with full transparency has never been more important. It allows us to carve out a white space for ourselves by serving as the connective tissue for our clients' technology, data and agent, creating the AI-powered marketing solution that they really need to win in the future.

AI is also a way for us to continue to increase our addressable market. By using AI to integrate new capabilities into our data and tech backbone, we are developing new source of growth. A clear example is our influencer business, which is materially accretive to our growth. By using AI to connect Epsilon data with Captiv8 technology and Influential Creator Network, we have built the world's largest and most powerful influencer media platform, enabling our clients to deliver the same reach that they can get to the Super Bowl for only a fraction of the cost.

Another example is what we are doing in sports. With the acquisition of Adopt and more recently, Bespoke, Publicis Sports is innovating in the category by leveraging, thanks to AI, the scale of our Connected Media operation and Epsilon identity to uniquely enable clients to plan, execute and measure across every channel from sponsorship to paid media to social.

Last but not least, we are building the next generation of AI-empowered health and medical communication, integrating CoreAI with capabilities like p-value acquired this summer to deliver enhanced scientific storytelling and faster speed to market, thanks to intelligent content generation, targeted audience segmentation and data-driven audience engagement.

AI is not only accelerating our current and future growth, it will also help us generate further operating leverage. In addition to investing in our proprietary AI native platform, we are looking at every opportunity to automate labor-intensive task, thanks to AI. This includes implementing agentic solution at the core of our operations.

In fact, we have started with our back-office processes. Combining our unique platform organization, our shared services backbone and the deployment of agents, we will bring greater elasticity to our cost base. Although it is early days, we are confident that this agentic solution will help us generate margin improvement beyond 2025, while allowing us to invest, including in training and upskilling of our talent to be AI fluent.

Well, today, while many are asking how AI will impact our industry, we have already embedded it into all of our operations, making our revenue mix AI-enabled and perfectly adapted to our client needs. This is the main reason why we are not only outperforming our peers and the IT consultancies, but we are also increasing the gap in Q3 with a very strong quarter.

Looking ahead, as we don't anticipate any slowdown in our client marketing investments, we are now in a position to raise our 2025 growth guidance. At the same time, our continued new business momentum means we are looking ahead to 2026 with clarity and confidence.

I would like to thank our clients for their trust and our team for their hard work and dedication. Thank you all for listening. And now with Loris, we are ready to take all of your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Laura Metayer of Morgan Stanley.

Three questions from me, please. The first one is on working capital. I've heard that Publicis may be using their working cap by offering attractive payment terms for customers to win new businesses. Could you please share your view on this? And also, what do you expect change in working capital to be for 2025? Second question on the creative business, which is growing very strongly. Can you help us understand what is the key value add of Publicis in this business? And can you talk about the production platform that you mentioned? What does it do that the video and image generation tools cannot offer? And lastly, you mentioned implementation of AI tools internally will help expand margins beyond 2025. How confident are you that clients will not ask you to share some of your savings with them?

Thank you, Laura. Actually, for Q3, there is a lot of questions for Loris already. So that's a good thing. If you don't mind, I'm going to take it in another order. I'm going to start with the creative business, then I'll say a word on new business, then I'll pass on to Loris for the working cap, and we'll finish on the AI tools, like this, hopefully, we cover everything.

So let's start with the creative business. We are very satisfied with our performance. I mean mid-single digit in a capability that is mainly declining for our peers is a great news. I think there is a couple of points that are important for you to take out of that. First, our creative business only represents 25% of our mix. In the presentation, we insisted a lot about our revenue mix because it's very favorable to growth, as you have seen. But although it represents only 25%, it is actually growing. And there is 2 reasons why it is growing.

First, when you take the 25%, you have 8% of those 25% that are AI production platform. This is growing double digits, where we are basically making the demonstration that you can grow with content production, thanks to AI in a company like our. Why? It's pretty simple is that, honestly, today, everyone can deliver cheaper, faster and better content. Laura, you can do it in your basement with basically ChatGPT, if you want. So it's pretty easy. What make it very difficult is to make this content, what we call intelligent meaning connected to the data and allowing you for every piece of content that you push to a client to know if it's working or not basically. And this is where we're winning is that not only we deliver better, faster and cheaper content on an AI platform, but we are able to connect it to our data to make it work harder in terms of business outcome for our clients. So part of the 25% are the 8% in production, growing double digits. The rest is what we call storytelling.

And the truth is this is an area where we are growing, honestly, because today, we are winning market share. We are basically winning pitches. And by winning pitches, we are also increasing our pie here versus competition. But what I think is very reassuring for any investor here is that 1/3 of our creative business is already 100% AI empowered and for the rest is winning market share and getting transformed. I'll say a word about the pitch activity, and thank you so much for asking the question on the working cap because this is something that we are hearing from some [Technical Difficulty].

I heard you until you said, you're hearing from and then...

Yes. We have a connection issue. Maybe I'll try another mic. Give me a second, I'm going to try another mic. Do you hear me better now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Do you hear me well?

Yes.

Okay. So I've got a problem because I'm hearing myself too. So we're going to try something. Give me a second. Maybe we can cut the sound here. You would see what we are doing in the room. We are playing with the mic and trying to fix that live. Okay, I think it's good now. You hear me well?

Yes.

No, you don't hear me anymore.

Yes, sir. We hear you loud and clear.

Great. So I'm going to assume you're hearing me. And if you don't raise your hand whatever you want because I have asked in the room that we don't use our mobile during the call. So we're not going to be -- we're good. We can start -- we can go again. Yes. Okay. Great. So Laura, I don't know exactly where I stopped on the pitch question, so I'm going to take it from the beginning. What I was saying is we're going to give you all the detail about the working cap and how we are winning today. And as I was saying, I'm very happy you asked the question because we have heard from some investors that actually some very disparate player in our industry was claiming against that. So I think it's good we can answer that.

But what I was saying is that, as you would recall, we had an historically high H1 when it comes to new business. And what we said in Q2 is it's still too early to know exactly what would be the momentum for the second part of the year. I would say that the good news is we had material wins when it comes to Q3.

And basically, this is one of the reasons, if not the main reason why we're now feeling confident and with more clarity when it comes to 2026. But I would say that what is really remarkable about the win we are having at the moment is that we are starting to win new business without a pitch process, meaning we are able to convince clients. And by the way, if you look, this is public information, as you know, we don't give any name anymore on new business, but this is public information. We have been able to convince very big brands with material accounts to move to Publicis without a pitch for a very single reason, which is AI allow us to differentiate even more and leverage our capabilities in a unique way which means that when clients come to a moment to choosing a partner, they are arbitrating between the world that can truly help them with material business impact today, thanks to AI and the one that maybe when they would be able to do it. And as they need the result immediately, we have seen a couple of pitch that have been stopped and the business going to us.

But to answer your question, I want to be straightforward before I give to Loris. We continue to win pitches for a while now, but we are keeping a very disciplined approach and staying away from the pitches that are only one surprise. And you have seen a couple of examples in the last quarter. And to be even more straightforward, the best proof that we are not buying market share is that we have been #1 in new business basically for the last 6 years while increasing our financial ratios in the same time. I invite you to look at our track record since 2020 roughly #1 in new business almost every year, if not every year, and increasing all of our financial KPIs, starting with the margin. And by the way, before I give to Loris, this is something that you can't say about our competitors.

If you look at our competitors, particularly last year, they had a very good track record in new business that is not translated into the number today. But maybe we can be more specific about the working cap and then we can go to the last question. So we have 1 mic for 2 now. So I've got to share the mic, give me a second. I'm giving it back to Loris.

Laura, hopefully, you can hear me well. So let's be very clear. Just like we are never winning on price, we are not winning on payment terms. Of course, pitches are, by nature, very competitive, including on payment terms, but we always look at this in a very measured manner.

Now when it comes to working capital, as we said at the beginning of the year, we should be around neutrality for the full year. We are very disciplined on managing it, including both vendor and client terms. In fact, in Q3, even though we don't provide cash flow information, we saw a meaningful improvement in our working capital. And as we said before, given the high seasonality of our working capital, the sensitivity at the end of the period cutoffs and the overall magnitude of the daily flows, our focus is much more on average net debt. And just to remind you, we are aiming to close to EUR 1.1 million in average net debt in 2025. The increase of roughly EUR 100 million versus our previous guidance results from further depreciation of the USD versus euro, which, as you know, is impacting our cash balance.

And by the way, Laura, I think the kind of comments you're having on the background when it comes to new business is not helping our industry and is undermining the intelligence of our clients. If you really believe that big clients that are investing a lot of money with our partner will take a decision on a pitch on pricing you're wrong. It's mainly the case that they choose on the strategic partner. Let me be clear, with aggressive pricing strategy that will all have, but at the end of the day, you never win a big pitch except for a couple of clients that, again, we don't pitch on price, you win on strategy, you win on capabilities, you win on talent, and then you qualify on prices for sure. Yes.

The next call is from Nicolas Langlet of BNP Paribas Exane.

So I've got 3, please. First, on GenAI. So you have mentioned the increased demand for GenAI services and products. Can you tell us a bit more about the type of services clients are particularly interested in? And do you think those services are a net addition to your traditional services or they are mostly replacing them? Secondly, on Sapient, Sapient the trend was a bit better than expected. Are you seeing sign of recovery? Or you think it's still too soon to say? And third, on M&A. I think you said you are now above EUR 900 million spend year-to-date. Do you expect any additional deals by the end of the year? And then looking ahead, do you plan to maintain that EUR 800 million to EUR 900 million M&A envelope for bolt-on in '26?

Nicolas, I realized with the problem of microphone, we did not answer the third question of Laura about AI tools for efficiency. So we'll come back on that after we answer Nicolas, with you, Loris. Yes. Okay. So I'll start with the GenAI question, which is a great one. Yes, I mean, there is 2-thing you need to take out of that call, I guess, is first, we haven't seen any slowdown in client demand in general, no cuts. And more importantly, we are definitely seeing a boom when it comes to AI empowered products and services. I think what is interesting coming back to your question, Nicolas, is that after our client has spent a lot of time trying agents with different partners, different hyperscalers and trying to see what was the proof of concept that could work, they realized that by doing small things on parallel topics were not having any impact and any business impact directly. I don't know if you have seen the MIT studies that shows that basically 95% of the pitch are actually failing.

I think the reason why things are changing now is that after a couple of years, again, experimenting AI, clients are realizing that they need to put AI at the core of what they do and that they need to do it in a way that can deliver today material business impact. And this is what we are doing with them. And this is why, by the way, we see such a boom, particularly in Connected Media and particularly in the U.S. where our model is the most advanced.

If I take a couple of quick examples to tell you the kind of things that we are doing today that are, again, increasing our growth pretty significantly and again, creating a gap that is even major with our competitors, I will give you 3. When you look first at Connected Media, one area where we are growing and more importantly, make our clients grow is our ability, thanks to AI, to connect paid media with commerce and influencer. To give you a concrete example, we are able today to spot someone to make sure that we advertise on the right influencer and leading directly to commerce to a new retailer website. I don't want to give any number here.

But as you can imagine, this is the kind of thing that we could not do before because, again, you need AI to connect those capabilities. Never forget that AI is only data talking to data, okay? And our ability to truly understand people better than anyone else with Epsilon to link it to the biggest influencer network and then link it to sales directly is the kind of thing where AI is immediately leveraging capabilities that will drive business outcome.

A second area where we talk very fast is on production. I mean, as I said, AI allow everyone to deliver cheaper, better and faster content. The question is how AI allow you to measure performance of this content and make sure that you can correct or eliminate or accelerate depending on the business outcome. Again, for this, you need the data, which we have with Epsilon, and you need the AI to connect it to the capabilities.

Last, and this will deserve more time and maybe to give me an opportunity to jump on to the Sapient question is agents. What we have experienced with the agents in the last year is clients trying to put agents almost everywhere and trying to see how it could work in a very fragmented way. And what they realized now is that they need to connect all of these agents. And again, here, thanks to Sapient, we have a fantastic solution, which is really an agentic network called Bodhi that allow us to truly help our clients transform and bring all of those agents together powered by data.

And then when it comes to marketing, adding our capabilities. But when it's, for example, about making sure that we move from a legacy IT system to modern IT system, doing it for 50% to 30% less than some of our competitors. This, again, hopefully, I'm clear and putting you a bit in the kitchen, but our concrete, tangible example of expertise that we have and only we have that we can put at the service of our clients and deliver immediate business outcome.

I'm going to pass on to Loris to say a word about M&A, and then I will come back to Sapient.

So as you said, Nicolas, we have reached the targeted envelope that we set for ourselves of EUR 900 million for the year, including earnouts, by the way. And we don't expect anything material until the end of the year. Now when it comes to 2026, it's too early to give you some guidance on the M&A envelope. But what I can tell you is that the pipeline remains very active and that we will continue to double down on our bolt-on strategy, focusing on a very specific capabilities, be it in identity resolution, data management, new media channels of production and specifically the technology associated with it and business transformation. But we want to remain also very cautious, and we will continue maintaining a very strict financial discipline when it comes to acquisitions going into 2026.

By the way, just to finish on that, and we went fast into the presentation, but what is starting to be very powerful with our M&A strategy is that not only it fits exactly with what our clients want, but by connecting new expertise to our data and technology, we are truly opening new addressable market for us, which is very encouraging because on one side, we are gaining market share on our direct competitors. On the other, we are opening new addressable markets. Influencer is a great example of that is by building the biggest and the most accurate influencer media network, we are able to generate new kind of revenue that we didn't have in the future.

We're going to do exactly the same thing with sports as we believe that, again, adding our capabilities to our data, we're going to make sport addressable, which is not today. And finally, there is a lot to do in the health sector at the moment. As you know, things are changing in terms of regulation. So every time we do a bolt-on acquisition, we think about, is this right for our clients? Is this fitting with our existing expertise? Is it opening a new market for us and increasing our addressable market, and this is definitely the case.

If I come back to Sapient. I mean honestly, there is a paradox at the moment in the so-called system integrator industry that Publicis Sapient belongs to. On the one hand, if you look at the last 2 years, I would say almost the last 3 years, the macroeconomic challenges have forced client to pause on their CapEx spend. You know that very well, and you see it as an evidence, will it be in all the result of the IT consultants.

But on the other hand, and this is why we are starting to see the beginning of this momentum at Sapient is that the very same clients, the ones that have post the CapEx know that they will need to accelerate in their agentic AI transformation, exactly for the reason I gave you before, which is, okay, it's great to do some experiments. But at one point, you need to have a cohesive strategy, and you need to go big on that.

And so -- for the time being, this has mostly materialized into an increasing demand on AI consulting projects. So again, it's really by consulting project that today Sapient is returning in positive territory, not to CapEx, but to this opportunity with many, many clients to show them the way for them to understand the road map.

Looking ahead, and this is important, we want to remain cautious as we don't know how long this macro induced to wait-and-see attitude will last. But to be very clear, when clients resume spending in CapEx and they will, we think that Sapient is very well positioned to take actually a disproportionate share of these opportunities, and this for 2 reasons. First of all, they really have built over time, leading enterprise grade agentic AI solution and platform. We talked about it a bit in our presentation with Bodhi and Slingshot.

And second, and I think this is a very important point for you guys. Its revenue mix is 100% on business transformation, where clients will focus their investments. They have no particular activity on outsourcing that will be totally replaced with agents. So again, we have to be cautious because it's early days, and it's great to see the momentum we're having with strategic projects, no doubt that client will need people like Sapient to make sure that they have an AI strategy that truly deliver business outcome. And we are very confident that the day they will resume on CapEx, we will see an acceleration. Do you want to take Laura's question?

Yes. The question on efficiency generated and then maybe to take a bit of a step back, we continue to generate operating leverage through 4 key sources. The first one is what you know our platform organization, our country model and obviously, our cost discipline, but also importantly, through productivity improvement, thanks to automation, including with agentic AI solution. But it's definitely early days and far too early to quantify the extent of those savings, that we will be able to generate. But just to give you maybe a bit more color.

First, we have been automating a number of, I would say, labor-intensive back-office task, Arthur said, thanks to agentic AI solution. And second, we are also looking where we can progressively deploy agents with 2 objectives in mind, work faster and be more productive. But keep in mind also that more than 50% of our AI investments go into upskilling and retooling our talent that helps them move away from manual task and focus on high-value services where we will continue to need them actually the most.

Well, thank you. And Laura, I hope we answered your last question now.

So the next question is from Adrien de Saint Hilaire of Bank of America.

So the first one, can you talk about the tailwind that you expect from all those new business gains in '26 versus what you had in '25? I think '25 is a bit more than 200 basis points. Secondly, I noticed that your 2 largest markets, U.S. and U.K. are growing 7% and 11%. And I think you said that these markets are indeed where your strategy is the most advanced. So do you think these markets are good leading indicators for maybe the rest of the group? And then finally, on this operating margin points on the unlock. So far, you've raised your organic growth twice in 2025 and yet the margin guidance has been unchanged. I know '25 is an investment year, but are you signaling that we should see stronger operating leverage in future years through that comment?

Thank you very much. I mean I'll start with the new business. Basically, tailwind this year has been 200 basis points plus, and we expect to be roughly the same for next year. And I think what is very interesting in those numbers is not that much the 200 basis points, but actually the 300 basis points of clients that we are retaining and growing. I think there were a couple of numbers in the presentation that were very important, 98% of retention rate over the last 5 years, growing our clients over this period by 50%. This, I think, is what, again, should give you confidence about the fact that our AI model is now working at full speed because we are creating a stickiness and an ability to grow with our clients, which is for us the most important thing.

And it comes to your second point about U.S. and U.K. I mean, they are definitely the most advanced in terms of capabilities. I don't know if we can say that they are a leading indicator because, of course, it's too early to see how the rest will develop. What I can tell you for sure is that in the U.K. and the U.S., we are definitely making the demonstration of the upside we can create in terms of growth. Never forget that the 5-ish that we're going to deliver this year is in a very challenging context.

I mean, let's be clear, it's not more challenging than it was a couple of quarters ago, but it's still very challenging with a couple of engines that are not fire up at all cylinders. So what you should take out of that, I guess, is that in difficult time, we were able to deliver 5%, thanks to our model. And in good time, hopefully, we can deliver more. I think a good benchmark of that was actually 2022 not 2021 because 2021, the comparable were so easy from 2020 that it was difficult to say.

But in 2022, a year where we stabilized again as an economy and where the trends were good, we were able to deliver double digits. So I'm not assuming that we're going to deliver double digit tomorrow. What I can tell you is that U.K. and the U.S. are definitely showing the way. By the way, I will put China into the same bag. And I think the Chinese model is very interesting, particularly when you compare to competition. And for sure, we have a couple of source of growth that make us very confident.

Number one, as we said, is this revenue mix that is actually over-indexed on growing segments and, of course, accelerating. The second is new business where we see opportunity to gain share. The third is what I talk about addressable market and our ability to make some acquisitions that make us win tomorrow. And last but not least, all of this in a competitive landscape that is reducing massively, I would say, by 25% at least and already anticipated by our clients. I will let you say a word on the margin.

Yes. Just a few points on that. I mean you will remember that in H1, we delivered 17.4% operating margin, which was 560 basis points above the peer group when you take into account restructuring charges as we do. We continue to guide towards a slight improvement. And this despite an acceleration of our investment when it come, as I said earlier, to AI upskilling. We're continuing to accelerate on talent upgrades, new business ramp-up, obviously, and the largest bonus pool of the industry this year again. So again, we are investing significantly behind the business, but will deliver continuing margin improvement.

If I can build on this question, as we said, we have the vast majority of our business that is AI empowered today. We are growing and delivering a very strong margin at the same time, outperforming our peers even more every quarter at the moment. But you need to know that AI has a cost. And by the way, this is one of the big reasons our clients today are being cautious on spending is that you can make all the plan you want. If you really want to implement AI, it has a big cost in terms of CapEx and also in terms of OpEx.

And the investment that Publicis is doing today to make sure that we continue to lead the way there and we start to make sure that we find some operating leverage also in our capabilities and in our operation has a cost. And the fact that we are able to mitigate and cancel this cost and continue to improve margin despite those investments is a big thing.

Same thing on talent. I mean we are overinvesting on talent. Loris said it. I think we are the only one that is paying the bonus as we do today. We are continuing to hire to increase, and we are making sure that we are, of course, more efficient every day, that we find solutions, sends to agents to continue to find some leverage, and we will. But I think that what you should take out of that, Adrien, is that while we are making significant investment in AI and in talent and by the way, in [ process ] training business, we are at the moment, we are still able to give an improvement on our margin.

The next question is from Julien Roch of Barclays.

Three questions. The first one is on Sapient. It went from slight growth in Q2 to positive in Q3. Can we get the actual organic growth rate in both quarter because slight growth versus positive seems the same to me. Number two, creative went from mid-single digit in Q2 to low single. Any reasons for that? And then lastly, on production, how much of the 8% is 100% AI, i.e., you produced ads with AI internally as opposed to use a physical production company, either internal or external? Because I would think it's not 100%.

Thank you. I mean I'll start with the last one and then I pass on to Loris. I mean almost 100% of what we produce are produced with AI. What the market doesn't get is that most of what was produced more traditionally was produced by third parties so far. So this is also a reason why you are seeing some growth is now we're able to start producing in-house some AI things that before were produced outside. It's particularly true, for example, for automotive. But I will let Loris answer 1 and 2.

Just on the Sapient numbers question, Julien, you remember that in H1, we posted minus 2%. In Q3, we're at plus 1%, fairly balanced between U.S. and international. And when we are looking at H2, we are expecting an improvement versus H1. That's on Sapient. On the question of creative, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, first, it's both mid-single digit. And so there's no great differences from one quarter to another. And second, there is a higher comparable when it comes to Q3, obviously, 2024 compared to this year.

The next question is from Jérôme Bodin of ODDO.

A few questions for me. So to start, I do have a question on AI. So you -- of course, you will not learn anything with me, but AI is definitely the #1 reason for the low valuation of the industry at the moment. And it seems to me that one of the reasons is that the mapping of AI is a bit unclear. Nobody really knows where the main competition will come from. We all know that there is a strong competitive pressure to come. But from where it's a bit unclear, which lead to recurring fears and a bit of fantasy.

So my question is, can you name according to you, this competition? I'm not asking for a corporate name, but more a type of player. Is it start-ups, big tech, midsized agencies, internalization according to you? So that's my first question. The second one is for Loris on the dollar. If the decline of the dollar become more structural, could you change your hedging strategy, both on the P&L and the balance sheet. So could you be a bit more active on that front? And lastly, Arthur, you said that you have won more businesses with no pitches. Do you see it as more structural? If that's the case, could it have a material impact on the margin?

Thank you very much. I'm going to take 1 and 3 and leave you 2, if you don't mind. Yes, I mean, if your assumption is that AI is leading to low valuation for our industry, I can tell you, and hopefully, we made the demonstration today that AI is the reason why we are growing faster and actually increasing the gap with competition. And it goes into your second question about the competition. I think that again, it's a journey we started more than 10 years ago under the vision of Maurice, which is to say, if we want to win in the future, we need technology and data.

And at the time, as you would remember, it was very, very challenged. But the truth is the reason why we are winning today and the reason why we believe we are a category of one is that we made the investment in data and technology that allow us to leverage AI and create a massive competitive advantage at the moment, and let's come back to your question, where clients are arbitrating because I guess one of the things that the market is not understanding is all of those hyperscalers, all of those platforms are essential partner to our clients, but none of them play more than 4% of their mix.

And so what client need at the moment is partner that can truly help them connect all of those capabilities for the sake of more efficiencies in media for the sake of brand value that stays strong, for the sake of transparent measurement and they're going to need this kind of connective tissue partner that can do that. And the reason why, again, we are growing so much at the moment is that the more complex, and the more tech the network -- the landscape is, the more opportunity it should present for us.

So what is our competition tomorrow? It is the one that will be able, as we do to connect all of these ecosystem being trusted by our clients and have the capabilities to leverage every of those platform in the best way. Honestly, I can't tell you 1 player today that is having, at the same time, the capabilities, the model, the people and the trust of the client to do it. And this is why, by the way, we are pretty confident for next year because we see this trend increasing.

Now this leads to your question about no pitch. Hopefully, it's a trend. I'm not sure. Let's be clear. I think that some client knows exactly what they want, and so we can come to an agreement pretty fast. Other still wants to see what happened on the market, which is again, totally comprehensible. But I think the shift in mindset says a lot. And the shift we have operated to Publicis to truly move from a communication group to truly be at the heart of our client transformation being able to build this tech infrastructure that they all need to leverage AI, thanks to Sapient, putting at the core of their model, the best identity of the industry to make sure that they know their client and their prospect better than anyone else.

Creating this agent network layer on the top of that to activate media, to deliver personalized content and to measure is a place where, today, we have a unique position. But I will say, and I'll stop there before I pass to Loris, there is something that, I guess, Jérôme should never forget is that on the top of that, we have the trust of our clients. And in a world that is getting increasingly complex, when you have the capabilities, the model and the people and the trust, you can grow significantly, actually more than our peers and more than the IT consulting and continue to outperform the market as we are expecting for next year.

So on the question on the USD or the FX, just to start with our guidance for the year. We're looking at a EUR 500 million impact. That's based on the exchange rate of $1.17 to $1.18 , I mean it's moved a little bit in the last few days, as you know. Keep in mind that our largest operation by far, is in U.S. and also that it's partly mitigated by the fact that our costs, they are obviously in USD. And so it's a bit of a natural hedge between the revenue and cost and the assets and debt. But given the size of our operations in the U.S., that would not have a big impact or would have a big cost obviously going beyond that.

All right. It seems that there is no more question, right, yes? So maybe I'll do a quick wrap-up. I mean the first thing that I hope you are taking out of our presentation is we don't see any slowdown in our client spend, which is, of course, a good news. And that's the opposite, and we discussed a lot about that. So thank you for your question. We see a booming demand for AI-led capabilities. And it's now it's serious. It's about delivering business outcome. And in our case, it creates 3 big opportunities that have materialized this quarter and will continue to materialize.

One is in Connected Media, thanks to our ability to connect paid media with commerce, influencer through AI. We talked about that. The second is definitely an AI-led production platform, due to the increasing demand of our clients for personalization. And I think this is a very important point for you guys because you can see a lot of people offering this kind of service. The question is, is it connected to the data in order to make sure that it delivered business outcome. And last but not least, and it translated into Sapient number, agentic network that can help our clients basically desiloed their organization.

We don't want to talk about the promise of AI. We wanted to show you today that AI is real as Publicis today, and it is the reason why we are growing now. If I have to sum up, it does it for a very simple reason is that it allows us to differentiate while clients are arbitrating between partners that can help them in this very complex world and the one that can't.

And the best proof of that are definitely our number. Of course, our Q3 number. But even more importantly, the gap we are creating in Q3 versus our competition. Last year, it was 350 basis points when you look at our main 3 competitors. This year, it's 700 basis points. So we are increasing the gap because we are increasing the differentiation. We are able to raise the guidance because now we are confident that this demand will continue. And again, we're starting to gain clarity and confidence for next year. And we feel that we're going to be able, again, to outperform our industry for the 7th year in a row despite tougher comparable every time particularly versus peers that might have lower numbers.

I'm going to thank you very much. I know that Jean-Michel is here to take all of your questions offline now and see you very soon. [Foreign Language]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.